The news comes just months after reports were circulating that the bank was weighing an entire unit dedicated to trading crypto-currencies.

Goldman Sachs is still trying to figure out how to cater to clients who want to trade bitcoin even though the crypto-currency is proving too volatile for the bank to trade itself.

Speaking at an event, chief executive Lloyd Blankfein said there was no imminent need for his bank to develop a strategy around the first crypto-currency, which on Wednesday reached an all-time high of $11,395 before plummeting 20 per cent the following day. 

“Something that moves up and down 20 per cent in a day doesn’t feel like a currency, doesn’t feel like a store of value,” Blankfein said at an event hosted by Bloomberg.

His comments came just months after reports that Goldman Sachs was weighing a new unit dedicated purely to trading crypto-currencies. They came one day after Big Four firm PricewaterhouseCoopers announced it had taken its first bitcoin payment for advisory services in Hong Kong. 

However, Goldman Sachs will trade in bitcoin if it becomes more established, fluctuates in a less volatile manner and has more liquidity, Blankfein said. 

Still, the bank has been exploring other ways to facilitate bitcoin trades for its clients. 

Tiffany Galvin, a spokesperson for the bank, told Family Wealth Report in October that “in response to client interest in digital currencies, we are exploring how best to serve them in the space.”

Bitcoin was spawned in 2009 by an unidentified person or group operating under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. In the wake of the 2008 financial tsunami, so-called “cypherpunks” sought to create a decentralized payment system independent of distrusted central banks and free of regulatory burden.

While banks have generally steered clear of bitcoin, the crypto-currency has garnered the support of some money managers, technology enthusiasts and speculators wooed by its price swings.

If its plans go ahead, Goldman Sachs would be entering what is undoubtedly a saturated market. 

The market for crypto-currencies is red-hot, and there are now said to be over 100 hedge funds offering investors exposure to the alternative asset class.

Autonomous NEXT, a fintech analytics firm, recently published a list of hedge funds targeting the space.

“Like wild mushrooms, crypto hedge funds have been taking root in the volatile and unregulated soil of the crypto economy,” the company said in a post on its website.