Bakkt Sees 100x Growth In Just 3 Months

By Kapil Gauhar

A subsidiary of Jeffrey Sprecher-owned Intercontinental Exchange Inc., Bakkt, traded over 18,900 contracts of its cash-settled Bitcoin futures in December 2019, as indicated by the company’s latest tweet. On December 16, 2019, Bakkt managed to trade more than 2000 contracts, which remains the highest daily volume for the recently launched product.

A Good Start for Bakkt’s Cash-Settled Bitcoin Futures

Bitcoin reportedly cash-settled monthly futures were rolled out on at ICE Futures Singapore on December 9, 2019. Bakkt saw a huge demand for the new product right away with more than 1,250 contracts that were traded on the day one.

This is a world of difference as compared to the lukewarm reception of Bakkt’s futures said to be physically-delivered, whose minuscule first-day trading volume of BTC 17 cast a shadow of doubt on the achievement of Sprecher’s entirely new venture.

Bakkt’s physical futures, however, soon started reaching new record highs, and their daily volume ultimately reached nearly $50 mln worth of Bitcoins on December 19, 2019.

Major Competitors’ Face Off

Not only this, Bakkt simultaneously launched its BTC options with its futures contracts, while taking a page out of its parent firm’s playbook and diversifying the list of its products. The ICE-backed cryptocurrency exchange today will face a few serious competition in the growing market niche.

The leading futures exchange, CME Group, is expected to launch its variety of contracts on January 13. As indicated by the Bloomber, CME sees “high anticipation” for the new CME product.