Intercontinental Exchange CEO: The bear market will boost the implementation of the Bakkt Bitcoin futures program

According to Coindesk's May 3 report, an executive at Bakkt's parent company on the Bitcoin Futures Exchange said on Friday that the round of cryptocurrency bears outweighs the disadvantages of the much-anticipated bitcoin futures exchange.

(Source: max pixel )

Jeffrey Sprecher, CEO of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), said in the company's first-quarter earnings conference call that this ongoing bear market "has a positive impact on Bakkt."

Sprecher said:

• Buying assets for Bakkt at a discounted price, ICE heads bluntly enjoy the cryptocurrency winter
• Market Analysis: USDT Open and BTC Independent Market
• The mining industry has doubled the price of second-hand mining machines, and the new mining machine has a longer payback period.

The cryptocurrency market has entered what people call 'cold winter', which is an opportunity for Bakkt because it can cool down the launch of the Bitcoin futures exchange. This is a benefit that the bear market brings to us.

Another benefit of this bear market is that the valuation of many cryptocurrency startups has dropped significantly, which has provided Bakkt with a very good acquisition opportunity, Sprecher explained:

In fact, we have been researching many different cryptocurrency companies and have acquired a company this week. If the market is too hot, then we will not buy this company because its valuation will be very high. .

This week, Bakkt announced the acquisition of Digital Asset Escrow (DACC), which is developing a cryptocurrency asset storage platform (Bakkt does not disclose the price of the acquisition).

In addition, Sprecher also said that Bakkt is working hard to help the industry continue to mature. Through a recent acquisition (Bakkt also acquired some of the assets of the independent Futures Trading Commission Rosenthal Collins Group, including employees), the company hired a large number of engineers.

Sprecher said:

There are still many people who are very interested in this market.

Regulatory issues

The main reason Bakkt postponed the release of Bitcoin futures was regulatory issues. It is widely believed that the company has placed a bit of currency control under the supervision of the US federal government, as well as a plan to settle the contract through its parent company's clearing house, and placed it in a gray area of ​​regulation.

Although Sprecher did not specify the difficulties they faced in regulatory issues, he pointed out that regulators are still trying to understand such assets and are also considering how they should be regulated.

He said:

If you are not highly regulated and highly trusted, then you can't really enter the institutional market we serve. I think we are still worth doing. Now everything is going smoothly. Of course, we still have a lot of things to solve, such as jurisdiction and custody, and a series of problems to solve the bank before adopting cryptocurrency assets. I think we are still on this issue. front.

Sprecher said that the bear market has also played a positive role in government regulation because it gives US regulators and legislators enough time to decide how they will ultimately regulate the field.

Sprecher did not explain the scale of the Intercontinental Exchange's investment in Bakkt so far, but Scott Hill, the chief financial officer of the Intercontinental Exchange, previously said that the company plans to invest between $20 million and $25 million in 2019. Prior to this, Bakkt had raised nearly $182 million from investors.

We will continue to update Blocking; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!