Goldman Is Setting Up Cryptocurrency Trading Desk

While the bank hasn't made a decision where to house the desk, one possibility is that it will operate within the fixed-income, currencies and commodities unit's systematic trading function, which conducts transactions electronically, two people said.

Darren Cohen, in the firm's principal strategic investments group, is also looking at opportunities, another person said.

"In response to client interest in digital currencies, we are exploring how best to serve them," Michael DuVally, a spokesman, said in a statement.

Publicly, Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein has been circumspect. He tweeted in October that his firm was looking at how to deal with bitcoin. In a Bloomberg Television interview last month, he said his bank didn't need a bitcoin strategy yet because the digital currency is still just developing and volatile.

And when the bank began clearing futures earlier this month, it demanded that some clients set aside funds equal to the full value of their trade, people familiar with the policy said at the time. The conservatism deterred some customers and led them to take their business elsewhere.