`Very, very important’ to have crypto rules

“As an American, I think it is very important that as we put legislation in place, we get it right for the long term,” Solomon told CNBC’s Sara Eisen during an interview in front of attendees at the World Liberty Forum at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., which was hosted by the Trump family‘s crypto venture World Liberty Financial.

“I believe that to operate markets safely and soundly, we need to have a rules-based system,” said Solomon, whose firm is one of the world’s premier traditional investment banks. “Our banking system is unique, and our banking system needs to coexist with this technological innovation.”

“If there are people who think we are going to operate in this environment without rules, they are probably wrong, and they should move to El Salvador,” he said.

El Salvador’s government has purchased bitcoin since 2022. Because of the decline in bitcoin’s price, the value of El Salvador’s holdings of that cryptocurrency has fallen to about $500 million, down from a high of $800 million last year.

Solomon commented weeks after a Senate committee advanced a cryptocurrency market bill that would create a national regulatory structure for crypto.

That bill has stalled over a dispute about whether digital asset companies would be allowed to offer customers rewards, or payments on stablecoins that are held in those companies. Banks have opposed such rewards, which could compete with their interest payments on depositors’ accounts.

Solomon said Wednesday that he is “super-interested in” crypto-related business.

“We obviously are doing a bunch of things around digitization and tokenization,” he said.

“We touch all that stuff,” Solomon said.

But, he added, “it doesn’t mean it’s central to what we do. These kinds of assets are still a small percentage” of Goldman’s business.

“We have clients, our clients have needs, we’re here to serve our clients.”

Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, earlier Wednesday at the conference, told Eisen on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that he still has “some concerns” about the crypto market structure bill, but “hopefully by April” it will be passed by Congress and be able to be signed by President Donald Trump.

Moreno brushed aside concerns that if the bill is not passed soon, it could die because of the chance that Democrats would regain majority control of the Senate and House of Representatives. Republicans are increasingly fearful they will lose control of at least the House in November’s midterm elections.

“The House isn’t going to go Democrat, and neither is the Senate,” Moreno predicted.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, when asked about the crypto bill, said “there is now a path forward where we can get a win-win-win outcome here: a win for the crypto industry, and a win for the banks, and a win for the American consumer to get President Trump’s crypto agenda through to the finish line so we can make America the crypto capital of the world.”