British bank Barclays is exploring cryptocurrency trading opportunities

A lot is changing in the world right now regarding cryptocurrency. Banks are slowly turning 180 degrees towards this new form of money. After years of opposition to Bitcoin, financial giants are now entering the cryptocurrency markets. The oldest British bank, Barclays, also decided to consider this possibility; bank executives began to note that they are quite progressive in their attitude towards digital money.

The bank's managers have not yet officially announced their plans. Instead, the bank is gathering customer opinions on whether it should launch its own cryptocurrency trading platform. Depending on how the public reacts to this request, we may well see a British version of an attempt by the American bank Goldman Sachs to get into trading Bitcoin and other types of cryptocurrencies. While such a survey does not necessarily mean that the bank will trade cryptocurrency, it is still a promising prospect for Bitcoin and the Bitcoin community. If bank executives do decide to do this, they will need permission from the country's financial regulator, which seems very unlikely, and the bank's CEO Jes Staley and the bank's president Tim Throsby are not particularly friendly to cryptocurrencies. That said, Barclays recently signed an intriguing partnership with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to improve the exchange's deposit and withdrawal capabilities in the UK.

It is clear that banks and other financial service providers are increasingly interested in Bitcoin and other forms of cryptocurrency. However, it is unknown whether this will benefit digital currencies, since clients of crypto-platforms are not inclined to store their assets in traditional financial institutions.

In general, the attitude of conservative banking circles towards new technologies can be explained by the saying “you want it and it hurts.”.

According to https://themerkle.com