Years After Criticizing Bitcoin, Former Goldman Sachs CEO Declares That Cryptocurrency Is ‘Happening’

Lloyd Blankfein, the former CEO of investment firm Goldman Sachs, said in an interview that cryptocurrencies are developing and disclosed he has changed his position on the crypto asset industry, years after slamming Bitcoin as a “vehicle for fraud.”

Blankfein was asked for his opinion on the cryptocurrency market by CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin after previously expressing pessimism. As he stated:

Consider that my perspective on it is developing. I am incapable of forecasting the future, but I believe it is significant to be able to forecast the present, as in, ‘What is happening?’ And when I look at the crypto, I see that it is occurring.

According to the former Goldman Sachs CEO, by “happening,” he means that the whole bitcoin ecosystem has grown over the last year. Goldman Sachs has begun providing customers methods to trade and hold cryptoassets, with experts at the firm projecting BTC might reach $100,000 if it continues to eat away at gold’s market share.

Blankfein’s remarks came after a crypto market sell-off in which the price of bitcoin fell to a record low of $34,000. In sum, the market value of the area fell from $2.1 trillion to $1.5 trillion before beginning to recover.

While cryptocurrency has lost a “significant amount of value,” the former CEO highlighted that it is now at a place “where billions of dollars of worth are contributing to it and whole ecosystems are forming around it.” Blankfein stated that the area benefits from the usage of blockchain technology, rapid transactions, and risk mitigation.

On Bloomberg Television in 2017, the then-CEO of Goldman Sachs slammed bitcoin, stating that “anything that fluctuates by 20% in a day does not seem like a currency, does not feel like a store of value.”

During the interview, the former Goldman Sachs CEO also addressed a broader sell-off in equity markets, stating that market bearishness was fueled by anxiety about inflation.

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