[2019-04-11] Bitcoin Futures Exchange Bakkt Hires PayPal, Google Vet as Product

[MathGame]

Bitcoin Futures Exchange Bakkt Hires PayPal, Google Vet as Product Chief

Bitcoin futures exchange Bakkt has hired a PayPal and Google veteran as its new chief product officer.

The firm announced Thursday that it had hired Mike Blandina, who at various points in his career served as head of payments and credit engineering at PayPal and director of engineering for Google Wallet. Most recently, Blandina was chief technology officer and head of product and engineering at OneMarket, Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler wrote in a blog post.

“As our CPO, Mike will lead our efforts to converge a trusted ecosystem for digital assets with payments use cases, two elements of Bakkt that help bring real world applications to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies,” she wrote.

https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-futures-exchange-bakkt-hires-paypal-google-vet-as-product-chief

[joniboini]

All this good news about Bakkt won't mean anything if they don't get any approval to start lol. Hopefully, US government will approve it and stop all this on-going drama about Bitcoin and manipulation.

If Bakkt and ETF got approved, market sentiment will turn really bullish and who knows what will happen after the halving done. Maybe we'll go parabolic from there and then face another major correction.

[1Referee]

Hopefully, US government will approve it and stop all this on-going drama about Bitcoin and manipulation.

The CFTC will approve it, no doubt about that, but the thing here is that Bakkt is such a tiny dot, that there is next to no priority to it from the side of the CFTC. It may be approved next month or next year, we can't do anything other than continue to patiently wait for it. There is no deadline as to when the CFTC has to make a decision.

I can however understand why people get so annoyed by all this Bakkt news while they still don't have an approval. Everything they do right now means that Bakkt knows it will be approved, but the time aspect is the only thing they can't control. Good thing is that the CFTC chairman is quite bullish on Bitcoin, which can't be said about the SEC chairman. It makes an approval even more likely. Patience. 

[Lanatsa]

Hopefully, US government will approve it and stop all this on-going drama about Bitcoin and manipulation.

I can however understand why people get so annoyed by all this Bakkt news while they still don't have an approval. Everything they do right now means that Bakkt knows it will be approved, but the time aspect is the only thing they can't control. Good thing is that the CFTC chairman is quite bullish on Bitcoin, which can't be said about the SEC chairman. It makes an approval even more likely. Patience. 

That's the good thing we do really like to see, even though we are into these delays but if people behind looks bullish on Bitcoin would already be a great factor
for us to consider that chances is pretty high and we can already make presumptions but as said that they cant do anything but to wait up on such approval and same goes
for us people who do eagerly waiting for such thing.Patience would really be tested out.

[BitHodler]

All this good news about Bakkt won't mean anything if they don't get any approval to start lol. Hopefully, US government will approve it and stop all this on-going drama about Bitcoin and manipulation.

Bakkt won't be approved. It's the same nonsense they keep repeating where from time to time they tease the public with an investment round or a new member addition to their crew, but it's meaningless.

People first blamed the government shutdown for the delays, then the CFTC needs more time to work through all the comments, and soon we'll see them point to another excuse as to why it still hasn't been granted an approval.

[squatter]

Bakkt won't be approved. It's the same nonsense they keep repeating where from time to time they tease the public with an investment round or a new member addition to their crew, but it's meaningless.

People first blamed the government shutdown for the delays, then the CFTC needs more time to work through all the comments, and soon we'll see them point to another excuse as to why it still hasn't been granted an approval.

I'll laugh pretty hard if all the Bakkt hype leads to nothing. Didn't they raise like $200M in seed investment just a couple months ago? That's a lot of money to see evaporate into thin air.

So, what's the holdup? LedgerX got CFTC approval for custody and physically settled derivatives almost two years ago.

[BitHodler]

I'll laugh pretty hard if all the Bakkt hype leads to nothing. Didn't they raise like $200M in seed investment just a couple months ago? That's a lot of money to see evaporate into thin air.

Bakkt raised just over $180 million IIRC. A large chunk of this capital came from crypto related funds that got rekt during the bear market, and even now things aren't looking good for them with their capital sitting in Bakkt.

The interesting part is that ICE has enough capital to fund Bakkt itself, but they apparently didn't have enough faith in this project to fund it themselves, so they raised capital from external sources. Convenient way to hedge risk, isn't it?

So, what's the holdup? LedgerX got CFTC approval for custody and physically settled derivatives almost two years ago.

LedgerX isn't a serious player within crypto and never has been. I'm sure it was granted an approval because of how the CFTC didn't think Bitcoin would ever grow out to the phenomenon that it is today.

Bakkt is in a league of its own and has mass appeal, and I don't think the CFTC is keen on allowing Bitcoin to gain even more ground than it already has. It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but people need to wake up for once.

One of the most trustworthy entities in the financial world can't get a simple product approved, that says enough.

[1Referee]

One of the most trustworthy entities in the financial world can't get a simple product approved, that says enough.

The only one to be blamed for the false promises is Bakkt, because the CFTC never indicated that they would approve Bakkt within x time frame. Bakkt just assumed that it would be approved before the end of 2018, then before April, etc. They should stop teasing people with these launch dates because it only leads to disappointment.

On top of that, Bakkt changed their proposal more than once, which requires the CFTC to review the whole proposal from scratch. Patience.