Bakkt Crypto Platform to Launch Jan 24
Bakkt, Intercontinental Exchange’s (ICE) Bitcoin futures trading platform is postponing its formal launch to January 24, 2019. The company’s Chief Executive Officer Kelly Loeffler made this announcement via a blog post on Bakkt’s website.
ICE is the operator of 23 of the biggest exchanges in the world, including the famed New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and had announced the creation of a futures trading platform for Bitcoin in August this year.
Reasons for the Delay
Bakkt was originally to be launched in December 2018, and in his blog post, the CEO of Bakkt explained the reasons for the delay. He also outlined the business plans for the new Bitcoin futures platform in his blog post. He also described some of the progress that they had already made in implementing the platform.
Loeffler said that the launch was delayed so that they would have more time for the project to develop the platform so that it would be operationally sound once it was formally launched.
Considering the volume of interest displayed in the Bitcoin futures platform and the amount of work required to put all parts of the project together, Loeffler stated that the company had decided to delay the launch so that customers could start trading without any issues from Day 1.
He said that as is frequently true for new products, there were new processes, risks and mitigants that needed to be tested repeatedly. Additionally, since they were looking at cryptocurrencies, a new asset class was being applied to these resources.
Loeffler’s post also indicated that the company was still working towards getting regulatory approvals. He said that the new Bitcoin futures trading platform was subject to approvals by the US CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) before these contracts could be properly launched.
The blog post also added more news about the new platform, stating that Bakkt was looking at new avenues of expanding its product range such as offering insurance for Bitcoin that had been kept in cold storage as well as insurance for the warm wallet that was going to be a part of the Bakkt Warehouse structure.
A New Trading Platform
Bakkt as a trading platform is not only going to be focused on day-to-day transactions. It will also give its customers the option of trading in contracts of Bitcoin futures.
What makes this platform’s futures trading interesting is that Bakkt took a road less traveled. These Bitcoin futures contracts will not be traded with fiat currencies. Rather, the company is building a daily, physically settled Bitcoin futures contract.