Investing.com - Bitcoin gained ground, but still remained in the red as Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) denied reports that it had put its crypto trading desk on hold.
Bitcoin fell 0.54% to $6,441.10 on the Bitfinex exchange, as of 10:04 AM ET (14:04 GMT).
Cryptocurrencies overall inched up, with the coin market cap of total market capitalization at $202 billion at the time of writing, compared to $239 billion on Wednesday.
Ethereum, the second-biggest alternative currency by market cap, slumped 4.16% to $220.59, while XRP, the third-largest virtual currency, increased 0.76% to $0.29166 and Litecoin was at $56.22, up 0.14%.
Goldman Sachs Chief Financial Officer Marty Chavez said Friday reports that the financial giant had ditched plans to launch a bitcoin trading desk were false.
"I really have to describe that news as fake news," he said, referring to an article from Business Insider, who first broke the story.
Speaking at a TechCrunch Disrupt conference, Chavez said the company is looking at exploring different ways to offer Bitcoin, including “non-deliverable forwards.”
“These are derivatives, over the counter derivatives. They’re settled in U.S. dollars and the reference price is the bitcoin U.S. dollar price established by a set of exchanges, the same one that’s referenced in the futures contracts, and we’re working on that now because the clients wanted physical bitcoin -- something tremendously interesting and tremendously challenging,” Chavez said.
Business Insider, citing people familiar with the matter, said that Goldman Sachs put its plans to open a trading desk on hold due to the regulatory concerns. The article reported that the company would instead focus on other projects such as holding digital coins on behalf of large fund clients but could look into a trading desk in the future.
Bitcoin fell to as low as $6,375.10 following the news.