Goldman Sachs has been eyeing crypto bankruptcy claims

Goldman Sachs has been looking at investing in crypto bankruptcy claims, according to Mathew McDermott, global head of digital assets.

In a fireside chat at the Digital Asset Summit in London, McDermott said the company has been actively investing in the digital asset space and has been "looking at the bankruptcy claims and other investing opportunities."

McDermott did not specify whether the company has started puchasing bankruptcy claims.

Since the collapse of multiple large crypto companies over the last two years, the bankruptcy claims market has heated up. Chief among them are claims for FTX, Genesis, Celsius, BlockFi and Voyager.

McDermott noted that Goldman Sachs launched its crypto desk in 2021. He said while last year was tough, this year has been a sea change in terms of supply, volumes and price action. McDermott said price action has historically been primarily driven by retail investors but that this is now changing with institutions coming in.

"You really see now the appetite has sort of transformed," he said.

McDermott added that the crypto part of the business has changed remarkably over the last one to two years. Now, the firm is seeing ample opportunity in tokenization and it has been active in this space through developing its own digital asset platform.

"That's really going to pay dividends now as we see an increasing cross-section of the financial market buy side/sell side really now wanting to push forward, not with a proof of concept but with actual real transactions" he said. "So that's something we are excited about over the next six to 24 months."