By
Bhushan Akolkar
April 12th, 2024
The digital asset department currently boasts a 70-man team of personnel, but will look to hire more hands throughout 2023.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs has said that there’s a possibility it hires additional workers to boost its digital assets team. According to a Bloomberg report, the team’s global head, Mathew McDermott, confirmed that the bank remains “hugely supportive” of blockchain applications. Therefore, while the digital asset department currently boasts a 70-man team of personnel, it will look to hire more hands throughout 2023. However, the hiring process would be as deemed “as appropriate,” McDermott added.
It might be interesting to note that the rate at which the digital assets team of Goldman Sachs has grown under McDermott is quite impressive. The team, which is now 70-man strong, consisted of just four members back in 2020 when he took charge of it.
Proposed Addition: an Exception, Not a Rule
Meanwhile, the decision of Goldman Sachs to add to its crypto team appears to be yet another impressive move. Especially considering that Goldman as a whole just carried out one of its biggest job cuts to date in January. At the time, the bank relieved at least 3,200 employees of their various jobs.
In addition to that, the broader crypto sector is still in recovery mode from the series of implosions that saw the $1.5 trillion crypto market crash last year. The crash would also ensure that thousands of crypto-based workers lost their jobs during that period. Now, however, token prices appear to be gradually finding their feet. But, regardless of that, crypto hiring remains the exception rather than the rule.
Goldman Sachs Rolls Out Its Blockchain Platform
Last week, Hong Kong used Goldman’s private tokenization platform, GS DAP, to sell an initial group of digital green bonds. The platform is a private blockchain as opposed to Ethereum’s, which is a public one, and Hong Kong was able to use it to sell $102 million of the bonds. Although Hong Kong also cut settlement time from five days after the trade to just a day.
Speaking about the GS DAP, McDermott acknowledges the prospect of it being used for other assets, including alternatives, fund units, derivatives, and private equity.