David Clifton Appointed As CEO of Bakkt, Only 4 Months After Mike Blandina Was Appointed

David Clifton was lately appointed Interim CEO of Bakkt by the board changing earlier CEO Mike Blandina who has solely held the CEO place for lower than 4 months.

The transfer comes after Blandina changed former CEO Kelly Loeffler throughout final December, as she opted to take a Senate seat for the state of Georgia.

Mike Blandina had come into his position with excessive expectations having beforehand held roles at PayPal and Google. Nevertheless, he didn’t maintain within the place on the well-liked Bitcoin futures platform for greater than 120 days.

Largest Sequence B in Historical past of Crypto

Bakkt is an organization majority-owned by ICE the Intercontinental Change Inc. (NYSE: ICE), a number one operator of international exchanges and clearinghouses.

Clifton was beforehand ICE’s Vice President, M&A and Integration, and joined ICE in 2008, serving beforehand as Affiliate Normal Counsel, M&A, main initiatives similar to ICE’s acquisition bid for eBay.

After the reshuffling with Loeffler’s departure late final 12 months, the corporate was capable of elevate a Sequence B in March.

The $300 million of capital from Intercontinental Change and different main software program firms and enterprise companies got here from buyers together with Intercontinental Change, Microsoft’s M12, PayU, Boston Consulting Group, Goldfinch Companions, CMT Digital, and Pantera Capital.

As half of that funding, Bakkt acquired Bridge2 Options, a supplier to loyalty applications of 7 of the highest 10 monetary establishments and a couple of of the most important U.S. airways, along with supporting one other 4,500 loyalty and incentive applications.

Clifton’s hiring as CEO could level to a shift in ICE’s priorities as the corporate seeks to deal with finishing the mixing of Bridge2 Options.

Bridge2 will assist usher in two new Bakkt merchandise, Bakkt Service provider Options and the Bakkt App, a digital pockets with loyalty level redemption capabilities that can launch later this 12 months.

Bakkt’s Product Choices

In 2019, Bakkt launched with ICE Futures U.S., the primary absolutely regulated bitcoin futures and choices market. That market was supported by Bakkt’s personal regulated bitcoin custody providing.

Bakkt is now a group of 350 staff, but it nonetheless has not emerged as a market chief in its earlier core product of Bitcoin Futures and Choices.

In response to Skew, Bakkt had $9.4M in Bodily Settled Quantity, $7.9M in Money Settled Quantity, and $6.9M in Whole Open Curiosity as of Wednesday, April 22, 2020.

This was in comparison with different high platforms for BTC Futures. OKEX had $685M in Bitcoin Open Curiosity, adopted by BitMEX at $643M and Binance at $252M.

The corporate’s pivot and web site rebranding in addition to its new tagline: “Observe, Spend & Ship: Crypto, Rewards, Factors & Money” could level to a extra direct to client mannequin as the corporate seeks to seek out additional product-market match whereas leveraging its current sources and new capital base.