15 May CoinDesk 50: Bakkt – Financializing Bitcoin
Bakkt’s debut last September was one of the most eagerly awaited launches in crypto because it promised something groundbreaking and potentially momentous for the industry: institutional access to actual bitcoin.
The crypto-first subsidiary of the New York Stock Exchange wouldn’t exactly buy or sell bitcoin for you, but its ambitious goal of offering the first physically settled futures contracts in the U.S. using a daily expiration structure almost promised to do just that. More important, this financialization of bitcoin could open the market to more types of traders (and speculators), offering skeptical firms that might not be able to trade bitcoin directly or the cash-settled futures offered by CME a new way of getting into the space.
This post is part of the CoinDesk 50, an annual selection of the most innovative and consequential projects in the blockchain industry. See the full list here.
Not content with serving institutional clients bitcoin options and futures contracts,…