Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley bet big on Bitcoin. 'Wall Street has literally arrived'

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Hey all, Liam here.

If Wall Street’s embrace of crypto has happened in fits and starts, this week that all changed.

Not only are some of the bluest-blooded banks and financial institutions diving into digital assets, but they’re iterating products for their more conservative customers.

Goldman Sachs, the $3.6 trillion asset management firm, finally filed a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund. Unlike BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF, which is officially the largest crypto ETF on the market, Goldman’s product has a unique twist.

Namely, the fund rarely touches any actual Bitcoin.

Instead, the Goldman Sachs Bitcoin Premium Income ETF is comprised mostly of other spot Bitcoin ETFs. It then sells call options on those funds to offer investors a steady yield.

For an asset that’s plummeted roughly 40% in the last six months, that steady income is attractive for traditional investors.

Goldman's filing hit the wire on Tuesday.

On Thursday, Morgan Stanley revealed that its week-old Bitcoin ETF had already hit $100 million in its first week — a feat chalked up to it being the market’s cheapest ETF at just 0.14%.

That same day, Charles Schwab announced it would let its millions of clients trade Bitcoin and Ether within their accounts for the first time.

“What we hear from many of our clients is that they have 98% of their wealth here at Schwab and they might hold a percent or 2% at some digital native firm to hold their crypto,” CEO Rick Wurster told CNBC last summer. "They really want to bring it back to Schwab because they trust us [and] they want it to sit alongside their other assets.”

While some Wall Street CEOs may have waffled about the future or even scoffed at digital assets in the past, calling them a fraud or a Ponzi scheme, these days the answer is unequivocal.

“Wall Street has literally arrived,” Nate Geraci, president of NovaDius Wealth Management, said on Friday.

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Post of the Week

Times, they are a-changin’.

Liam Kelly is DL News’ Berlin correspondent. Contact him at liam@dlnews.com.

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