Bakkt News: Intercontinental Exchange’s Bakkt announces that the release of their first product, a Bitcoin (BTC) futures has now been postponed to Jan. 24, 2019.
The company reported the dealy via a blog post, it also went on to state that the trading and warehouse operations are both expected to begin on Jan. 24th. The blog post elaborated:
“the new listing timeframe will provide additional time for customer and clearing member onboarding prior to the start of trading and warehousing of the new contract.”
Kelly Loeffler, Bakkt CEO further explained in an announcement on Medium, saying that the “volume of interest” in the company and the “work required to get all the pieces in place” contributed to the delay. She adds:
“As is often true with product launches, there are new processes, risks and mitigants to test and re-test, and in the case of crypto, a new asset class to which these resources are being applied. So, it makes sense to adjust our timeline as we work with the industry toward launch.”
Bakkt previously planned to launch the product on Dec 12. Notably, the new date is subjected to regulatory approval. In their previous announcement, it was revealed that the product would be a physically-settled bitcoin futures, i.e. the client would receive bitcoin upon the expiration of their contracts, rather than the token’s cash equivalent.
However, Loeffler hinted that the company may offer more than just bitcoin futures:
“We’ll share more about some of these new features in the coming weeks but as a start, I’m pleased to announce that we have insurance for bitcoin in cold storage and are in the process of securing insurance for the warm wallet within the Bakkt Warehouse architecture.”
She further added that the main focus is on building an institutional-grade cryptocurrency warehouse, as “we … believe this is a significant step in building confidence in this asset class.”
Read more: Goldman Sachs Crypto Custody Will Use Bakkt Cryptocurrency Trading Platform
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