With a lengthy post on the official blog, Bakkt has announced the official launch date of its futures contracts backed by physical bitcoins.
For some weeks now, following the start of the operational tests, the CEO of ICE, the parent company of Bakkt, had declared that the launch was imminent, but now the official confirmation has arrived: the custody and the daily and monthly bitcoin futures contracts, which are physically delivered, will be launched on September 23rd, 2019, in collaboration with ICE Futures US and ICE Clear US.
Bakkt’s bitcoin futures have been given the green light by the CFTC through the self-certification process and with the approval of the New York State Department of Financial Services for the creation of the Bakkt Trust Company and Bakkt Warehouse to keep the bitcoins underlying the contracts, it is finally possible to launch them on the market.
These futures contracts regulated in BTC, and not in dollars like the previous ones,
“offer customers unprecedented regulatory clarity and security alongside a regulated, globally accessible exchange in a market underserved by institutional-grade infrastructure“.
According to Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler, author of the official post unveiling the launch date, digital asset markets are global and well-developed but have been largely designed to serve retail, and not institutional, customers.
Bakkt’s task is to fill this gap, thus allowing even the most demanding institutional clients to access this market, overcoming the obstacles that have so far slowed their participation.
The Bakkt Warehouse, part of the Bakkt Trust Company, was created to make the custody of BTC secure. This is a $125 million insurance storage system, built using the computer and physical security protections used by the world’s most active financial markets, including the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), managed by ICE.
Bakkt’s bitcoin futures will be traded on ICE Futures US markets and settled on ICE Clear US, which are traditional CFTC regulated entities that have been in business for a long time. In addition, Bakkt’s contracts will be covered by the current ICE Clear US guarantee fund.
Tests will continue until the launch on September 23rd, after which the contracts will be available on the market, mainly for large institutional clients.
