Bakkt Announces First Acquisition, Waiting on CFTC Approval for Launch
Bakkt has just announced its first acquisition in acquiring certain assets of Rosenthal Collins Group (RCG). RCG has nearly 100 years of experience in the investment world. Bakkt will begin onboarding RCG team members in February.
Although Bakkt, the much-hyped digital assets platform owned by the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and its parent company the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), postponed its release to “sometime in 2019,” big moves have been happening behind-the-scenes. After hosting a massive fundraiser of $182M to end 2018, Bakkt has now announced its first acquisition.
The company has acquired assets in Rosenthal Collins Group (RCG). RCHG is an independent futures commission merchant with “nearly 100 years of earning clients’ trust.” Some members of RCG will begin migrating over to Bakkt starting in February. RCG also notably has close ties to Marex Spectron after selling all their customer accounts to them in December 2018.
With the acquisition, the only next step is regulatory approval from the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) according to Kelly Loeffler, CEO of Bakkt.
Expectations Are High
The CEO of Bakkt said in her press release that this recent acquisition demonstrated that the exchange has been working diligently while waiting to receive compliance approvals. She writes:
“This acquisition underlines the fact we’re not standing still as we await regulatory approval by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for the launch of regulated trading in our crypto markets.”
Bakkt has been met with high hopes ever since they announced themselves to the crypto world in 2018. Investors were optimistic that Bakkt would be the catalyst for institutional money pouring into the cryptocurrency market. With their big-name supporters like their parent company the New York Stock Exchange, it seems that all we are really waiting on is this regulatory approval by the CFTC.
Is the hype over Bakkt merited? What impact will it have on the security token industry? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Image courtesy of Flickr.
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