Welcome to another issue of Net Interest, my newsletter on financial sector themes. Every Friday I go deep on a topic of interest in the sector and highlight a few other trending themes underneath. If you enjoy Net Interest, please invite friends and coworkers to sign up. Thanks!

The Goldman Sachs of Crypto

Earlier this week, Goldman Sachs strategists put out a report highlighting which US stocks have the highest exposure to blockchain and cryptocurrency. They come up with nineteen names. Tesla’s in there, of course – its CEO is one of crypto’s biggest champions; Facebook makes the grade as well, as the driving force behind the Diem stablecoin project. But the list also includes quite a few financial companies, from Coinbase and Square and PayPal all the way through to Bank of New York and JPMorgan. In fact, just under half the list consists of financial companies.

Based on Satoshi’s initial vision for bitcoin, this may seem odd. The white paper that launched bitcoin talks about allowing…