Digital Asset Platform Bakkt Announces Its First Acquisition

Digital asset platform Bakkt announced via a Medium post on January 14 that it has acquired certain assets previously held by the futures commission merchant Rosenthal Collins Group (RCG).

The exchange, supported by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), announced in the post that the acquisition was a part of Bakkt’s larger, more ambitious plan to become the first integrated and institutional grade exchange-traded markets and custody solutions.

Providing further details of the acquisition, Bakkt’s CEO Kelly Loeffler said it meant that the company was not slowing down its operations while waiting for regulatory approval by the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The approval would mean that the company could legally start trading in cryptocurrencies in the American market.

Talking about how the acquisition will further the company’s goals, she stated:

“First, it will enhance our risk management and treasury operations with systems and expertise. Other aspects of the transaction will contribute to our regulatory, AML/KYC and customer service operations as we help enable digital asset acceptance by bringing more choice and control to buyers and sellers.”

A veteran player in the financial market, RCG was founded in 1923 that had recently announced that it was selling its customer accounts to leading commodity broker Marex Spectron.

The acquisition announcement was made just over a week before Bakkt was slated to launch on January 24. However, it seems that the exchange will not be able to meet the set deadline as the CFTC has placed a constraint on the launch.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has mandated that there has to be 30-day feedback period open to the general public on the proposal before the exchange can actually start its tradings and transactions.

However, it seems that that will have to wait as the United States of America is going through the longest government shutdown that it has experienced in its history. The record-breaking shutdown began on December 22, 2018, has still shown no signs of coming to a stop. As such, the CFTC, a government body is also working at a sub-optimal condition, meaning that the process may be delayed indefinitely.

However, Ms Loeffler was optimistic about the company’s new step forward, stating that they are still strongly committed to “bringing digital assets into the mainstream by enabling efficient transactions between consumers and merchants” and that while Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is still in its nascent stage, the company is “committed to expanding the use of this technology to promote choice by building a fair, efficient platform for digital assets globally.“