Goldman Sachs to Extend OTC Crypto Options Trading to Ethereum

American multinational banking giant, Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS) is set to launch an Over-The-Counter (OTC) crypto options trading for Ethereum (ETH), the world’s second-largest digital currency. As reported by Bloomberg, citing the capital markets company’s global head of crypto trading, Andrei Kazantsev, the plans to launch the new service is based on the growing demand for such product from its clients.

Since crypto came into the limelight in the past couple of years, a number of mainstream traditional financial companies have been making attempts to offer services at the behest of their clients. Goldman Sachs was amongst the firms whose dramatic shift in position in relations with the crypto ecosystem has been resounding across the entire breadth of the nascent industry.

In its push into the crypto space, Kazantsev said the bank started its OTC crypto options trading service for Bitcoin (BTC), a product that has gained a lot of buzzes thus far. While options trading is a tool investor and traders utilize in hedging against risks or to boost their yields. OTC transactions on the other hand represent a humongous trade that is typically negotiated in private.

While many may consider the digital currency ecosystem to be new, a lot of complicated transactions are already being facilitated across the board. Despite the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) being cautious about the kinds of crypto-related products it permits, banks like Goldman Sachs have been able to devise avenues to help facilitate these complex transactions.

Though the New York-headquartered financial giant offers no spot trading for Bitcoin and Ethereum, Kazantsev said the plans are in place to launch cash-settled Ether options “in due course.”

Goldman Sachs Shift to Ethereum

It does not come as a surprise that Goldman Sachs is lending support for Ethereum as the digital currency is arguably one of the most revolutionary digital tokens around today. Per the Bloomberg report, client conversations have increasingly shifted to Ether, which is now seen as “more of an investable asset class,” George Lewin-Smith, an associate on the bank’s digital-assets team, said during a panel on Tuesday.

Ethereum currently boasts of a $397,686,168,701 market capitalization atop a price of $3,308.76 according to data from CoinMarketCap. Its cheap cost in comparison to that of Bitcoin is also a good selling point that has endeared investors to digital currency.

While Ethereum is prominently adjudged as the biggest smart contracts enabled platform in the industry, the developers behind the project through the Ethereum Foundation are doing all they can to correct the woes of the protocol including the lack of scalability and high transaction fees. One of the ways being projected is through the proposed switch of its consensus modalities to Ethereum 2.0, a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol that also utilizes less energy.

The positive events surrounding the Ethereum network account for why investors are raving to gain exposure to it in one form or another.