The CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfield, told an audience at the Economic Club of New York recently that he does not side with other powerful bankers who have dismissed Bitcoin;
“I’m not in this school of saying… because it’s uncomfortable with me, because it’s unfamiliar, (Bitcoin) can’t happen, that’s too arrogant.”
Last September, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon aroused considerable ire among Bitcoiners when he called Bitcoin a “fraud,” not “a real thing,” and said, “governments are going to crush it one day.”
Dimon also said he would fire any JP Morgan employees trading or holding bitcoins because, “it’s against our rules and they are stupid.”
Shortly thereafter, it was revealed that JP Morgan reps were buying Bitcoin ETFs on European exchanges.
Dimon begrudgingly withdrew his disdaining comments in January, stating he “regret(ted)” them.
In April, citing “client interest,” Goldman Sachs appointed Justin Schmidt as head of digital assets trading in its securities division.
Blankfein told the Economic Club of New York that he can conceive of a scenario in which the cryptocurrency “work(s) out”:
“And so it’s not for me, I don’t do it, I own no bitcoin. Goldman Sachs as far as I know… has no bitcoin, but if it does work out, I could give you the historical path why that could have happened…
If you could go through that fiat currency where they say this is worth what it’s worth because I, the government, says it is, why couldn’t you have a consensus currency?”
