Solomon also said that Goldman Sachs’ direct involvement with crypto has been very limited by regulatory constraints until recently.
The CEO of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon, has revealed for the first time that he personally owns Bitcoin.
Solomon’s big reveal came during comments made on Wednesday at the World Liberty Forum 2026, held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
“I’m still trying to figure out how Bitcoin behaves. I own a little bitcoin, very little,” Solomon told the audience.
He didn’t specify how much he considers “very little” Bitcoin to be. Solomon is known as a high-profile supporter of blockchain technology but a skeptic of cryptocurrencies themselves, doubting they have any real value.
“I’ve always said I think it’s a speculative investment,” Solomon told CNBC’s Squawk Box in 2024, adding that he didn’t see any breakthrough use cases for Bitcoin other than perhaps as a store of value. He said at the time: “there very well could be a store of value case.”
The Goldman Sachs CEO was part of a list of prominent figures to appear at the World Liberty Forum event to discuss and promote the controversial Trump family-owned DeFi project, World Liberty Financial (WLFI). Other guests included Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and rapper Nicki Minaj.
In January, it was reported that just before Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2025, WLFI secretly cut a deal selling a 49% stake in the project valued at US$500 million (AU$708m) to Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a figure with close links to the United Arab Emirates Royal family. It has also been reported that part of the deal included giving the UAE access to tightly restricted high-powered AI computer chips.
House Democrats in February launched a probe to examine the details of the deal, with Representative Ro Khanna claiming that the deal is “not just a scandal, but may even represent a violation of multiple laws and the US Constitution.”
Goldman Sachs’ Interest in Crypto Limited By Regulation “Up Until 10 Minutes Ago,” Says Solomon
Asked if Goldman Sachs holds Bitcoin or other digital assets in its investment portfolio, Solomon didn’t answer directly, instead explaining that regulation has limited what the firm can do around digital assets.
“Up until 10 minutes ago the regulatory structure was extremely prohibitive on what we could do as principal,” he said. “That regulatory structure is evolving, but when you talk about crypto assets specifically we’ve been very limited up until very recently as to what we can do.”
Solomon went on to clarify that Goldman Sachs’ approach to digital assets is more about allowing its clients to invest in what they want, how they want to, rather than investing in those assets itself.
“The centre of how we think about this is ‘we have clients, our clients have needs, we’re here to serve our clients, we’re not here to act as the principal.'”
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