Intercontinental Exchange

Basics

• Based in Atlanta, Georgia
• From Forbes Blockchain 50 (19-2-2020):

"In 2019 the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange launched Bakkt, one of the first regulated bitcoin futures exchanges. Since launching in September, Bakkt has settled 117,000 bitcoin futures contracts and plans to add support for other digital assets soon. Bakkt also makes fee income helping customers store their bitcoin and by selling market data about how its products are used. In the first half of 2020 Bakkt will launch a consumer-facing payments app allowing customers the ability to pay merchants like Starbucks with cryptocurrency."

Bakkt

Basics

• From this Bitcoin.com article (23-9-2019):

"Regulated, physically-delivered daily and monthly bitcoin futures. Customers’ bitcoins are stored in the Bakkt Warehouse, a qualified custodian, regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Bakkt is powered by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), owner of the New York Stock Exchange."

"ICE Inc. first announced its plan to form Bakkt in August last year, with an intention to work with a number of companies including BCG, Microsoft and Starbucks, according to its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). They aim “to create an integrated platform designed to enable consumers and institutions to buy, sell, store and spend digital assets on a seamless global network,” the document shows. Bakkt originally planned to launch in December last year but faced regulatory hurdles, including the federal government shutdown at the beginning of the year."

• The first day of launch didn't bring spectacular volumes:

"Trading of Bakkt’s physically-backed bitcoin futures saw something of a slow start at launch Monday.

Minutes after the launch at 12:00 UTC, the first Bakkt/ICE futures contract changed hands at $10,115. The number of contracts in the first hour stood at just 5 total. At press time (10 or so hours later), 28 contracts had been traded, with just one at a sub-$10,000 price.

And that’s just for the monthly bitcoin contract. For the daily bitcoin contract – arguably Bakkt’s flagship product – the volume looks even more tepid.

The first such contract appears to have been traded some 18 hours after Bakkt went live, at a price of $9,975.00, according to the data feed on ICE’s website."

• "Mustered just $5 million of total trading – and its daily product traded fewer than five contracts across its first week. By comparison, some 4,099 bitcoin futures contracts traded on Friday alone at rival Chicago-based exchange operator CME, whose market opened in 2017. And the CME’s futures contracts represent five bitcoins, for a trading volume of $165 million on the single day."

From this CoinDesk article (28-10-2019):

"When ICE first announced Bakkt in August 2018, the company said it was partnering with Starbucks and other companies to provide a retail experience, but few details of this part of the vision have been shared since. Monday’s announcement said Starbucks will be Bakkt’s first launch partner when the app goes live sometime in the first half of 2020.

Team

• Kelly Loeffler; CEO (as of 9-2019 according to here. Update: she became (12-2019) US Senator)
• As of 9-2019 Adam White is being named as CEO in this Pantera blog piece. And COO in this piece (9-2019). Update: White left the company(23-12-2021).
• Mike Blandina; Chief Product Officer but called the CEO in this article (16-3-2020) left for JP Morgan.
• From CoinSpice (24-4-2020):

“Bakkt’s majority-owner Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE.N) on Thursday named David Clifton as interim chief executive officer to replace Blandina. Clifton joined ICE in 2008 and is currently its vice president, M&A and integration,”

• "With the completion of our Series B financing and recent acquisition of Bridge2 Solutions, Bakkt is now a team of 350 employees and powers the loyalty redemption programs for 7 of the top 10 financial institutions and over 4,500 loyalty and incentive programs including two of the largest US airlines," Mike Blandina wrote in a post (12-3-2020).

Funding

• From The Block (16-3-2020):

"Bakkt has raised $300 million in a new funding round. Investors include Intercontinental Exchange, Microsoft’s M12, Goldfinch Partners, Pantera Capital."

• Is part of the portfolio of MultiCoin (25-11-2020).

Partners

• Galaxy Digital and Bakkt will team up (10-6-2020) to offer buying and custodial services.

Tech

• Will use (19-2-2020): Bitcoin

Team, investors, Partnerships, etc.

Team

• Key Executive: