In what could be called an extremely sound and smart move, Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE) took advantage of the “crypto winter” and purchased crypto assets at a discount for its institutional cryptocurrency trading platform Bakkt, as reported by Reuters on May 2.
Jeffrey Sprecher, ICE’s chief executive officer told Reuters –
“It’s really been helpful that the cryptocurrency industry sort of went into what they call a winter.”
While 2018 started off well, it later evolved as a bear year for digital currencies, in mid-November crypto markets suffered sharp double-digit decline with bitcoin (BTC) stationed $5,600 for the first time that year.
Originally scheduled to go live in January 2019, Bakkt has been subsequently delayed due to the ongoing consultations with the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Following which, Sprecher stated in early February, that he expects Bakkt to launch later in 2019.
In a recent interview with Reuters, the CEO added that ICE has been busy hiring on talent, including through acquisitions:
“We’ve actually looked at a number of different companies and acquired a company earlier this week that wouldn’t have been available to us if the market had been really hot.”
Bakkt did oversee multiple important hires in previous months including, former engineering executive at PayPal and Google Mike Blandina as its chief product officer; Tom Noonan, a former cybersecurity expert at IBM, Cisco and Endgame became the chairman of Bakkt’s board of directors; Coinbase veteran Adam White was appointed as Bakkt’s COO and head of institutional custody and traded products.
As reported on Monday, Bakkt acquired cryptocurrency custodian service company Digital Asset Custody Company. At the time, it was further revealed that the firm has filed an application with the New York Department of Financial Services to operate as a trusted company, enabling it to serve as a Qualified Custodian for digital assets.
Read more:Microsoft Azure launches A Fully Managed Blockchain Service
Image Source – Stock Photo Secrets
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