Capital "retrograde" in times of crisis: Giants deploy Bakkt
Editor's Note: This article comes fromBlocklike（ID：iblocklike）, Odaily is authorized to publish.
Editor's Note: This article comes from
, Odaily is authorized to publish.
Facing the recent slump and circuit breaker in the global financial market, the current global capital market is already in turmoil. Panic is continuing to spread, and the digital currency market is also falling. In this context, the financing news from Bakkt made some investors look forward to it.
In times of crisis, large investment institutions and industry giants choose to "retrograde" and deploy in the field of digital assets. To some extent, it shows a new trend.
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Bakkt: The Intersection of Digital Currencies and Institutional Money
As a bitcoin futures trading platform endorsed by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Bakkt has approvals from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the New York Department of Financial Services (NYFDS). Its parent company ICE has a relatively complete system in the traditional financial field. It is the second largest regulated exchange and clearing house operating network in the world, and it is also the second largest futures exchange in the United States and the third largest futures exchange in the world. Based on this background, Bakkt was once described as the "regular army of Wall Street."
Due to the background of ICE, the traditional financial industry has shown a very positive attitude towards Bakkt. At the beginning of its establishment, Bakkt successfully completed the first round of financing, with a total of 182.5 million US dollars. At this time, investors included Li Ka-shing's Victoria Harbor Investment Horizons Ventures, Microsoft Venture Capital M12, Tencent's early shareholder Naspers, the famous Boston Consulting Group, the currency circle Goldman Sachs Galaxy Digital and other 12 shareholders. It is worth noting that this round of financing took place as early as the end of 2018, when the digital currency market was also immersed in a long bear market.
However, according to data from Skew, the trading volume of Bakkt's Bitcoin futures products launched in September 2019 was only more than 37 million US dollars. In early 2020, the trading volume of BTC futures on the Bakkt platform has been low. Transaction volume still has a lot of room for improvement.
As one of the intersections of digital currency and institutional funds, Bakkt has its special features. Jiang Zhuoer, the founder of LeBit Mining Pool, once said: "Many rich people just need to store coins. In the past, compliance institutions could not get funds. Now it is much more convenient to have Bakkt physical delivery."
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Bakkt's "financing" and "expansion"
While Bakkt announced the financing news, different signals were released, and Bakkt is expanding into a wider range of digital assets. Bakkt said: "When the Bakkt APP launches this summer, we have the potential to unlock nearly $1 trillion in digital assets."
In February of this year, Bakkt announced the acquisition of Bridge2 Solutions, a point exchange solution provider. Bridge2 is a point exchange solution provider for merchants and consumers. Bakkt hopes to use Bridge2's current relationship with banks and merchants, as well as its payment solutions based on user "loyalty" to launch new products.
From this point of view, consumer applications or the next goal of the Bakkt platform, this vision will be guided by "points", and eventually create a digital wallet that manages user hotel, restaurant, airline, and credit card points. Previously, Bakkt planned to acquire eBay to enter the C2C e-commerce and collectibles trading market, and it also saw this direction.
In this way, it is not difficult to understand the cooperation between Bakkt and Starbucks. On the day when Bakkt’s new round of financing was announced, Starbucks also issued a statement stating that it is still the “strategic launch partner” of Bakkt’s digital wallet. At present, some users of the Starbucks mobile app can now choose “Bakkt Cash” as a payment option, but It is still in limited beta.
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Organizational "panic" and "layout"
Last week, due to a series of chain reactions of the epidemic, the three major U.S. stock indexes plummeted, and the global financial market fluctuated violently. The cryptocurrency market has also experienced greater turmoil. Under such circumstances, the attitude of large institutions towards the digital asset market has become the focus of attention in the industry.
A senior investor from the industry told Blocklike: "There is a correlation between the digital currency market and the stock market. In 2019, the digital currency market regards the opening of the Bakkt futures trading platform as a huge benefit, because institutional funds The inflow is more convenient. Correspondingly, the digital currency market will also assume corresponding responsibilities, and the outflow of institutional funds is also more convenient. In order to ensure cash flow, institutional funds often invest in multiple markets. When the US stock market hits hard, institutional funds There is a need to recover cash flow."
