Well, Bakkt has been around for over a month. Despite a slow start, it looks like the crypto trading platform has easily rebounded and is now trading in the millions in terms of the number of bitcoin futures contracts.
Bakkt Can Work in “Other” Ways
And yet, there are some analysts that don’t seem to think this will make bitcoin and cryptocurrency mainstream. How can this be? For years, the primary argument behind Bakkt is that it will bring institutional traders to the playing field. This will potentially legitimize the crypto space and bring it to new heights. Now they’re saying that this isn’t necessarily the case.
That’s because Bakkt has a whole separate side to it that people have either forgotten about or aren’t remembering. That side involves using cryptocurrency as a payment means for goods and services in retailers across the country. This ability is now available, and many analysts claim this is what’s likely to push bitcoin and crypto into mainstream territory.
Bakkt is working on a customer service app set to debut in 2020 that will allow customers to utilize crypto when purchasing things like cups of coffee at Starbucks. The coffee king is set to be Bakkt’s first partner in this department, though people won’t necessarily be purchasing drinks and pastries with bitcoin itself. There will still be a transfer process in which the BTC being used is traded for fiat, as bitcoin transactions are still too slow for the likes of the app.
However, it’s a solid start. Other companies, such as Microsoft, are also working with Bakkt to ensure crypto can be used to access their growing list of services. Bakkt chief product officer Mike Blandina explained in a blog post:
We’re now focused on the development of the consumer app and merchant portal, as well as testing with our first launch partner, Starbucks, which we expect in the first half of next year. A key feature of the model we’ve designed is to support a superset of digital assets, including cryptocurrencies, as seamlessly as investors transact in stocks in a retail brokerage account.
We forget how much people have been eager to utilize crypto to pay for items. This is originally what cryptocurrencies were designed for. Unfortunately, price swings and volatility have made this very difficult throughout the years.
When Will Crypto Become a Store of Value?
Jeffrey Sprecher – the chief executive of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) which owns Bakkt – explained that bitcoin transactions need to pick up if BTC is ever to “become a long-term store of value.” He said:
Because I’m old, I think of [how] gold became a store of value because at one point it was a currency… We don’t think that [the crypto] space will be relevant and grow unless there are real use cases.
