South Korea’s national postal service, Korea Post, which manages over $112 billion in assets, is set to meet with Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs to “accumulate know-how” on cryptocurrencies.
According to Bloomberg, Korea Post doesn’t yet plan on investing in cryptocurrencies, but is merely looking to learn more about the nascent industry. The organization’s president Kang Seong-ju revealed through an interview he discussed cryptos with Goldman Sachs’ incoming chief executive officer, David Solomon.
As CryptoGlobe covered Solomon has a friendly approach to cryptocurrencies as he’s made several pro-crypto remarks. He’s set to replace Lloyd Blankfein, who’s been leading the financial services firm for twelve years, in October.
Per Seong-ju, Korea Post staff will meet with Goldman’s cryptocurrency research team in Hong Kong by the end of this month to study blockchain technology, digital assets, and related areas including artificial intelligence. He was quoted as saying:
I asked Goldman to pass on their know-how in the cryptocurrency area. Cryptocurrencies are considered to have potential, and are something many people are watching, we’ll need to learn the strengths and weaknesses.
Goldman Sachs has been taking baby steps to enter the crypto space. The firm has reportedly been studying cryptocurrencies through a group of employees since October 2017, and hired crypto trader Justin Schmidt as its head of digital assets markets in April of this year.
The Wall Street giant has, as covered, recently shelved plans to launch a bitcoin trading desk in the near future, and is instead set to focus on developing other projects like its crypto custody service, which could see it hold cryptocurrencies and even tracking price changes on behalf of large institutional clients.
Korea Post’s move comes at a time in which South Korea is increasingly adopting cryptocurrencies, as crypto transactions are even set to replace fiat transactions in one of its provinces. While the country banned initial coin offerings (ICOs) back in October of last year, it may now to lift the ban and loosen its rules on cryptos.
Bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency, recently saw its price plunge below $6,500, presumably over Goldman Sachs’ move to drop its bitcoin trading desk plans and a BTC whale moving over $100 million to exchanges.
