Wall Street is Backing Out of Crypto

[cybersofts]

Wall Street is quietly moving out of the crypto market, Bloomberg reports. While the market has continued to be battered by news of fraud and imminent regulatory crackdowns, there was a time when it seemed like Wall Street had started to warm up to the rise of crypto assets.

Last year, when the crypto industry enjoyed what was probably the biggest bull run in its history, it seemed a lot of mainstream financial companies were also ready to join the bandwagon. Names like Goldman Sachs, Fidelity Investments and Barclays Bank Plc. were all affiliated with reports to open cryptocurrency divisions, and these speculations sent ripples around the financial industry.


Goldman Sachs’ Trading Desk Dreams
Goldman Sachs was one of the first Wall Street firms to show interest in Bitcoin futures, and rumors claimed that the firm was working on developing a seperate crypto trading desk. The investment bank partnered with Galaxy Digital and led a $57 million series B investment in custodian firm BitGo Holdings Inc., in a bid to offer custody services. Fast-forward to a year later, and Goldman is yet to offer crypto trading. The bank’s Bitcoin derivative product has not made much progress since it launched.


Citigroup Inc.- Digital Asset Receipts
New York-based Citigroup Inc. also reportedly developed a crypto-based product that could help asset management firms and hedge funds reduce the risk they get exposed to when they invest in crypto. The product, known as Digital Asset Receipt, was expected to provide crypto investors with an innovative means of keeping tabs on their investments and offer an additional layer of legitimacy and trust to the fledgling asset class.


Barclays Inc. and Its Crypto Trading Desk
Then we have London-based Barclays Inc. The British bank showed a massive interest in crypto during the boom, hiring energy traders Chris Tyrer and Matthieu Jobbe Duval to help lead its digital assets division. Both were hired to help look into avenues where the bank could make a foray into the crypto world and provide recommendations, especially as rumors swirled that it was considering developing a crypto trading desk of its own. Sadly, Tyrer ended up leaving earlier this year, while Duval remains with the firm. In addition to Tyrer quitting, Barclays also denied any rumors of the crypto trading desk.


So What Happened?
According to the report, there are two reasons for the quiet withdrawal of Wall Street in the market; the downturn in the market and a lack of a regulatory framework on cryptocurrencies. The first reason is relatively simple. 2018 has been a wild ride for the crypto market, with about $700 billion being wiped off. Crypto-based firms are feeling the brunt of this bear market, with news of retrenchments, companies folding up and manufacturers of mining rigs losing profits by the day.  On regulation, it is believed that the continued lack of a specific regulatory framework on cryptocurrencies has continued to deter big names in the financial industry from taking the plunge into the sector.

Hopefully, 2019 will see a rejuvenation in the crypto industry, as well as the introduction of clearer crypto regulations.


Reference: https://www.ccn.com/wall-street-is-backing-out-of-crypto/

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[exstasie]

Then we have London-based Barclays Inc. The British bank showed a massive interest in crypto during the boom, hiring energy traders Chris Tyrer and Matthieu Jobbe Duval to help lead its digital assets division. Both were hired to help look into avenues where the bank could make a foray into the crypto world and provide recommendations, especially as rumors swirled that it was considering developing a crypto trading desk of its own.

They're making mountains out of molehills with this one. Barclays denied the "crypto trading desk" rumors outright and never announced any project (Unlike Citibank with their DAR plans).

Has Citi trashed their plans to offer DARs backed by Bitcoin? I don't see any indication of that. I figured institutions like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs were in no rush because there hasn't been much interest from clients. They've said as much.

[pooya87]

to back out of something they have to first be inside of it and Wall Street has never been exactly "in cryptocurrency market" to begin with. there might have been agents that entered the market, did some traders, possibly even manipulation specially during the downtrend while shorting but nothing big specially since this market despite what it seems like is pretty small for the "wolves".

expressing interest like Goldman Sachs is another matter, they want to earn money from commissions and as long as the liquidity remains up they will be interested. currently it is not as high to interest them.

[target]

We've seen enough news about bitcoin in forex market already, not longer than 5 years we will be seeing crypto being used on street level.
More of them will be joining, the more the merrier of course although there are more of them that will also be cashing out every time grabbing more out from you too.  More will also grab money.

[davis196]

The rats abandon the ship,while it's going down(even though I don't think that crypto will go down).
The Wall Street rats just follow the trend and cashout the profits.I guess they've made a decent amount of profits out of crypto trading,so they are leaving for a while.They won't stay away from crypto forever.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

They're making mountains out of molehills with this one. Barclays denied the "crypto trading desk" rumors outright and never announced any project (Unlike Citibank with their DAR plans).

That's probably an accurate assessment.  And I'm not disappointed that Wall Street is backing away from involvement with crypto (if that's actually the case).  Investment banks tend to wreak havoc on everything they touch.  Look what they did in 2008 with all of their derivative mortgage products and their use of leverage--they nearly crashed the entire banking system.  I'm afraid if they started to develop crypto derivatives and related instruments and started to overleverage their investments, they could destroy bitcoin.

I tend to think of bitcoin as "the people's money" but I'm not naive enough to think that when something appreciates in value like btc did in 2017 it wouldn't attract the big money.  It would have been inevitable.  If they're getting scared off now, I say screw 'em.  I like bitcoin just fine and that's enough for me.

[Pursuer]

They're making mountains out of molehills with this one. Barclays denied the "crypto trading desk" rumors outright and never announced any project (Unlike Citibank with their DAR plans).

That's probably an accurate assessment.  And I'm not disappointed that Wall Street is backing away from involvement with crypto (if that's actually the case).  Investment banks tend to wreak havoc on everything they touch.  Look what they did in 2008 with all of their derivative mortgage products and their use of leverage--they nearly crashed the entire banking system.  I'm afraid if they started to develop crypto derivatives and related instruments and started to overleverage their investments, they could destroy bitcoin.

this is exactly why I stopped being excited about things such as futures, ETFs, SEC regulations,... the more we stay away from any kind of government, banks, big moneyZ involvement in bitcoin the better. specially in the early stages of bitcoin which has a pretty susceptible market because of the small size of it. maybe in a couple of years with more market maturity we can handle the mess they are going to bring with them but not now.

[Wind_FURY]

I believe the "down-turn" of Bitcoin's price had more to do with Wall Street "backing-off" than the "lack of regulatory framework". Wall Street is run by the most greedy whalecummulators around, the less regulation an asset has, the more motivation for them to play with it.

But wait for a few months until they have accumulated enough, and have filled their pockets full of Bitcoin, before they release the FOMO.

[exstasie]

I believe the "down-turn" of Bitcoin's price had more to do with Wall Street "backing-off" than the "lack of regulatory framework". Wall Street is run by the most greedy whalecummulators around, the less regulation an asset has, the more motivation for them to play with it.

But wait for a few months until they have accumulated enough, and have filled their pockets full of Bitcoin, before they release the FOMO.

A tad further down the rabbit hole than I usually go, but you bring up a good point. We see it on the charts time and time again. Institutions usually don't accumulate deep into a bull market or early into a bear market. They aren't in the business of "saving" retail bagholders, which is often what bitcoiners seem to expect around here. On the contrary, they're more likely to push the market down or at least wait until they see signs of retail seller exhaustion. Then they slowly accumulate until the next bull market emerges. Wall street is a patient lot.

[arpon11]

Instead of getting discouraged about what has happened I think we should be encourage. Investors are going to come back into the market again and by then many of traders at Wall Street and other big investors all over the world are going to come back into the market. 
If over $700billion has been wipe off of cryptocurrencies market there is no way this will not discouraging big investors but what we should remember is that most of the financial assets that has made great impact has been one time pump and dump and we should be used to this type of financial system.

[magneto]

I don't think that it is fair to say that they are backing out of crypto.

Institutional investors obviously have shown interest, and I think the reason why a lot of them have not actually launched their bitcoin products is because of the fact that it's simply a very inopportune time to do so when there is a raging bear market happening around the bitcoin sphere.

But ultimately, we shouldn't be measuring bitcoin's success based on institutional investors. They may have a short term influence on price, but I don't think that in the long run they are as important as actual adoption and use of the network. They simply don't have direct influence on how the network is run or the facilitation of transactions, even though they may be able to influence price.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

But wait for a few months until they have accumulated enough, and have filled their pockets full of Bitcoin, before they release the FOMO.

But here's the thing: I don't think big Wall Street players want to own actual bitcoin, because the market cap is too small for any big investment bank or hedge fund to own a large chunk of it.  Why?  Because the buying and selling of it can move the market too much, probably even if they were to do so OTC.  What Wall Street wants is a way to gamble on the direction of bitcoin, and for that there needs to be a futures/options market. 

Do you think commodity traders actually want to own barrels of oil or physical gold/silver?  Hell no!  They make money by just betting on where the price is going to be at a certain time in the future and don't have to actually own the underlying asset.  Thus I think until some sort of derivative bitcoin/crypto product is created and approved, the big Wall Street players won't start actually doing anything as far as trading crypto goes--but you can bet they're still interested in it and are trying to predict what's going to happen.

And OP, I forgot to mention:  Can you please not include huge pictures that don't add anything to the thread?  I'm getting tired of people doing this.  Just quote the relevant parts of the article you're sharing and forget the silly picture of the street sign.  Thanks.

[exstasie]

Do you think commodity traders actually want to own barrels of oil or physical gold/silver?  Hell no!  They make money by just betting on where the price is going to be at a certain time in the future and don't have to actually own the underlying asset.  Thus I think until some sort of derivative bitcoin/crypto product is created and approved, the big Wall Street players won't start actually doing anything as far as trading crypto goes--but you can bet they're still interested in it and are trying to predict what's going to happen.

Well there is a regulated derivatives market. We've got the cash-settled futures (Cboe and CME) and we've also got LedgerX, which has physically-settled options and swaps. To be fair, the volumes traded on CME futures have been steadily rising throughout the year. That's impressive considering volumes across the spot market dropped all year until the recent crash.

I think Wall Street's entry into crypto trading and investment has been slowly and quietly happening for years. For instance, Fidelity Investments has been mining since 2014. I've also traded a good deal of forex and commodities in my time and the heavily quant/algo driven market we have in Bitcoin today is nothing like the market was in 2013. It reeks of institutional traders in our midst.

Wall Street doesn't announce their presence when they're accumulating.....they stay quiet and hype nothing. When they're selling, that's when you'll see them hyping institutional interest and regulated instruments.

[BitHodler]

But ultimately, we shouldn't be measuring bitcoin's success based on institutional investors. They may have a short term influence on price, but I don't think that in the long run they are as important as actual adoption and use of the network. They simply don't have direct influence on how the network is run or the facilitation of transactions, even though they may be able to influence price.

Institutions are passengers hopping from plane to plane to reach their next best destination. They aren't a reliable player anyway. Those that entered are here to squeeze out as much money out of people as possible.

We really need to build on the use aspect of Bitcoin in order to make it worthwhile. Overall, the news outlets have been hyping up institutions entering the space where rookies echo everything on social media platforms.

People created an environment where institutions suddenly matter, while they really shouldn't. Look at all the idiots begging for an ETF. We never needed these instruments and now people act like the market is in dire need.

[Slow death]

Wall Street is quietly moving out of the crypto market, Bloomberg reports.

I'm not seeing numbers to compare how many came in and how many left. The crypto market still lacks regulation, that is the biggest cancer the crypto market suffers. We need regulation that is present in most countries of the world so that most people in the world can buy bitcoin with greater ease and security, and also that people can use bitcoin as a means of payments in their countries, only so these big Investors can invest a lot of money without problems, I believe the biggest problem for these Wall Street guys is not volatility, but it's the lack of proper and clear regulation

[iv4n]

They are backing out of crypto, haha. When did they get in, I wonder?  What is Wall Street anyway? Some people are making millions on market speculations? Is crypto in some need for those kind of people and institutions?
Crypto should be something different from this system that we have, so ETF approval, Wall Street, countries that are still in stone age, do we really need all of them? Or we need open minded people, who will understand all the benefits from this technology and make a new system, much better than this one?

[criptix]

https://m.nasdaq.com/article/even-in-a-crypto-winter-venture-capitalists-are-thriving-cm1074203

[sana54210]

So let me get this straight, goldman sachs the company that bought Circle which bought poloniex and working with galaxy digital and Bitgo holdings... is not into crypto anymore ? That is only because they are not starting their crypto desk so far ? Maybe the fact that they are supporting the crypto companies and waiting for SEC to decide on the securities part of the crypto world before they are starting their own parts and instead focusing on already existing business is a smarter idea ? Whoever wrote this piece is clearly just wishing for wall street to back away that's all.

You can't just list all the crypto things these companies did and show their support and than just say "but they didn't do more!!" as an excuse to say they are not interested anymore. They can't invest into crypto every single day.

[figmentofmyass]

So let me get this straight, goldman sachs the company that bought Circle which bought poloniex and working with galaxy digital and Bitgo holdings... is not into crypto anymore ? That is only because they are not starting their crypto desk so far ? Maybe the fact that they are supporting the crypto companies and waiting for SEC to decide on the securities part of the crypto world before they are starting their own parts and instead focusing on already existing business is a smarter idea ? Whoever wrote this piece is clearly just wishing for wall street to back away that's all.

it's a clickbait piece based on nothing. just look at their examples. they're saying wall street is leaving crypto just because GS and citigroup haven't developed their products yet. hell, the citigroup news about offering DARs is only a few months old! the third example is based on fake news: barclays denied ever having plans for a crypto trading desk.

re goldman, this is from three months ago:

Goldman Sachs Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Martin Chavez said that recent reports about the company abandoning its plans to open a cryptocurrency trading desk are “fake news,” CNBC reported September 6.

[buwaytress]

That's just the frontline trading services. But believe me, all them Wolves got into Bitcoin far earlier than they'd let on. You think they wouldn't do OTC or broker deals? Private equity homed in in 2016 too so there was always an avenue for that money to go. Why do you think all that hyped bull run happen?

Besides, those names are still recruiting and will recruit more in 2019. Now it's blockchain engineers cornering the market but watch out next year for risk compliance, tax steucturing and due diligence... All geared towards Bitcoin centric business.