ICE’s Bakkt launch dwarfed by rival

By Robert Stevens

Bakkt, the Bitcoin futures contracts exchange run by the Intercontinental Exchange, the organization that runs the New York Stock Exchange hasn’t quite lived up to the expectations of hodlers expecting a sudden price boom. Investors hoped that Bakkt would bring Wall Street money to Bitcoin because it has the backing of Wall Street’s regulators, like the CTFC. 

But so far, it hasn’t. In its first week of trading, only $5.8 million in trade volume was recorded on Bakkt. Right now, just 54 Bitcoin is being traded ($430,000). 

That’s better than VanEck’s recently created Bitcoin investment product sold to institutional investors—and advertized as like an ETF—which brought in just 4 Bitcoin (or less than $41,000). But it’s far, far worse than the Bitcoin futures contracts that launched on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) back in December 2017. Back then, CME traded $460 million in its first week. 

On Friday alone, CME traded 4,099 contracts, each containing 5 bitcoins. That’s a total of 20,495 Bitcoins, or $164,298,167. Compared to Bakkt’s...54, CME remains unchallenged.   

JP Morgan analysts have gone so far as to suggest that the launch of Bakkt has depressed the whole Bitcoin market. “It may be that the listing of physically settled futures contracts [i.e. Bakkt] has contributed to recent price declines, said the report. 

Bitcoin’s price tanked over the past 7 days, from $10,026 last Sunday to today’s price, $7,933. That’s a fall of more than 20 percent.

Gulp! 

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