NYSE Owner is Buying Bitcoin at Cheap Prices Ahead of Bakkt Launch
By CCN.com: The bitcoin bear market of 2018 was a disaster for most crypto fans, but it was a boon for the highly-anticipated cryptocurrency trading platform Bakkt. That’s the opinion of NYSE chairman Jeffrey Sprecher, the CEO of Bakkt’s parent company, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).
Sprecher’s ICE — along with Microsoft, Starbucks, and BCG — is bankrolling Bakkt, whose CEO is Sprecher’s wife, Kelly Loeffler.
sprecher: bitcoin winter was good for bakkt
Sprecher tried to put a positive spin on the Crypto Winter by saying it gave Bakkt time to build out the platform and buy up bitcoin at relatively cheap prices.
“It’s really been helpful that the cryptocurrency industry sort of went into what they call a winter,” Sprecher said on a call with analysts. “That took some of the heat off of the timetable to launch.”
Bakkt — which will facilitate bitcoin futures trading for institutional investors — electrified the crypto community in August 2018, when it announced its imminent launch.
Bakkt will provide custody and price discovery for bitcoin — which is regulated as a commodity by the CFTC — in a way that’s designed to be free from market manipulation and fraud.
