Goldman Sachs Plans Tokenized Projects

Leading multinational investment bank Goldman Sachs plans to venture deeper into tokenization in 2024!

What’s the Scoop?

• New Offerings: Goldman Sachs’ Global Head of Digital Assets Mathew McDermott told Fortune that his firm wants to launch three different tokenized projects this year.
• Product Types: Specifics of the offerings were not provided, but one is expected to cover the U.S. fund sector while another will target European debt markets. A tokenized asset marketplace is also set to be launched, which will increase trading speeds and the types of assets that can be used as collateral. 
• Existing Efforts: Goldman is no stranger to tokenization; the bank has already issued tokenized debt for both the European Investment Bank and Hong Kong Monetary Authority, in addition to launching a tokenization creation platform. 
• Private Chains: Due to U.S. regulatory restrictions from its designation as a bank, GS is prohibited from operating on public blockchains and will rely on privatized alternatives.

Bankless Take:

Although traditional financial institutions have demonstrated resilience in adopting blockchain technologies, it is evident that they are keenly aware of the advantages and seeking to establish a foothold, particularly within the RWA/tokenization sector.

Despite hundreds of trillions of dollars in assets standing at the ready to be tokenized, existing public blockchains have had a relatively difficult time gaining non-crypto native traction for their RWAs, leaving one to postulate whether the private blockchains banks are restricted will finally become the nexus for actual “crypto” adoption.