Bakkt, the cryptocurrency trading platform and payment service of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), part of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), is set to go public later today. ICE announced this in a press release last weekend.
Bakkt has now merged with VPC Impact Acquistion Holdings. On October 18, Bakkt will start trading as a publicly traded company on NYSE under the stock sticker BKKT.
Bakkt was launched in 2018 by ICE. Expectations were high at the time about the platform, because it was expected that it would attract massive institutional investors to the crypto market. However, the volume on the platform initially remained very low.
Early this year, the trading platform announced its plans to go public through a merger with VPC, which is valued at approximately $2.1 billion. ICE has an economic interest of approximately 68% in the merged company. The merger was approved by VPC shareholders on October 14. About 85% voted in favour.
Bakkt announced last week that it will partner with Google. The goal is to “expand the reach and usability of digital assets to millions of users.” Customers can now add their Bakkt Visa payment card to their Google Pay account.
Coinbase, the major US cryptocurrency exchange, went public in April and was valued at a staggering $100 billion at the time. Recently, Bitfury, a bitcoin (BTC) mining company, announced that it is also targeting a multi-billion dollar valuation for its IPO in London or Amsterdam. Bitfury’s head office is located in Amsterdam.