Every expert and their brother in law and cousin thinks they have all the answers to how to “bring Bitcoin to mainstream adoption”. It is always referenced in a way suggesting that Bitcoin is somehow broken or not working properly because it doesn’t accommodate a rent seeking VC from Silicon Valley or Wall Street banker.
Enter BAKKT. Wall Street meet Silicon Valley, and while you’re at it the two of you can serve Starbucks coffee to Joe Public. BAKKT is a digital asset clearinghouse based entirely on Bitcoin at this time. BAKKT is set to launch live Bitcoin futures trading on ICE on September 23, 2019. This is live Bitcoin futures where physical settlement is required. This means clients must actually have the Bitcoin to post as opposed to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange futures where nothing was settled in actual Bitcoin.
BAKKT has a strategy focusing on four things: custody, payments, futures, and compliance. There are some very heavy hitters involved with BAKKT to include Microsoft, Starbucks, and the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). We have already seen Microsoft and Twitter go all in on exclusively Bitcoin while Fidelity has been mining Bitcoin for years now. Facebook, on the opposite side, looks to partially compete with Bitcoin and run its own quasi stablecoin Libra.
