Goldman Sachs said to be open to hiring staff for digital assets group

Goldman Sachs ( NYSE: GS ) said it's open to adding more staff to its digital assets team, bucking the industrywide trend of a barrage of layoffs following last year's market crash, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. The investment bank is “hugely supportive” of exploring blockchain applications, Mathew McDermott, the 70-person team's global head, told Bloomberg in an interview, while noting the group would implement hires "as appropriate" in 2023. The potential move comes after Hong Kong was said to have used GS DAP, Goldman's ( GS ) private blockchain, to sell $102M worth of tokenized green bonds, in an offering that cut settlement time to one day from five. Stung by slumping capital markets and its retreat from consumer banking, Goldman ( GS ) in December 2022 reportedly prepared to lay off as many as 4,000 jobs in a bid to meet profitability goals. In August 2022, Goldman's DeFi network startup raised $5M in a funding round .