Goldman Sachs Expands Bitcoin Push With $2.25B Asset Manager Deal

Goldman Sachs (NYSE: $GS) has agreed to acquire NEOS Investments, the asset manager behind the $1.1 billion Bitcoin High Income ETF (BTCI), in a cash-and-stock transaction that values the firm at as much as $2.25 billion.

NEOS manages about $30 billion across 19 options-based ETFs. The acquisition is expected to lift Goldman's active ETF assets to roughly $80 billion, while its total ETF assets under supervision would exceed $130 billion.

BTCI does not hold Bitcoin (CRYPTO: $BTC) directly. Instead, it invests in spot Bitcoin exchange-traded products and uses covered-call strategies to generate monthly income. The approach puts Goldman and NEOS in competition with BlackRock (NYSE: $BLK), which also offers a Bitcoin income-focused ETF.

"Goldman's acquisition of NEOS marks the formal start of the next phase, which sets out to answer a far more sophisticated set of questions: how to generate income from Bitcoin's volatility; how to design products suited to retirement accounts, wealth-management clients and more risk-averse investors; and how to embed bitcoin into a traditional asset allocation, rather than treat it purely as a speculative asset," HTX spokesperson Molly told Cryptoprowl.

She added that the move shows Wall Street is moving beyond simple Bitcoin exposure and increasingly using crypto's volatility to build structured investment products within traditional financial markets.