Regulating Bakkt – How the Platform Could Experience Further Delays
Investors waiting for Bakkt, the first bitcoin futures contracts to launch from the Intercontinental Exchange, will probably have to wait longer.
ICE, which owns the New York Stock Exchange, has been anxious to launch bitcoin futures for months. However, it remains in must-wait-for-the-government mode. The government agency that needs to give its blessing, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, still hasn’t decided to approve or decline it.
The issue could be as simple as how to regulate the name ICE has given it, which is Bakkt.
"Behind the delay is disagreement between ICE and the regulator over how @Bakkt—ICE’s name for the project—should be regulated." via @aosipovich https://t.co/KOTJNki8cD
— Frank Chaparro (@fintechfrank) March 21, 2019
Working Hard or Hardly Working
Concerns remain about the viability of ICE’s plans. The news of the impasse comes on the heels of CCN’s earlier reporting on the issue. The CFTC’s commissioner Dan Berkovitz was steadfast in saying the futures and options markets regulator is working hard on the Bakkt proposal. While he’s refused to provide an approval deadline, Berkovitz said the agency is not anti-crypto or anti-blockchain.
Berkovitz recently reassured the crypto community that the body is committed to freeing the market from fraud and manipulation rather than shooting down new technology:
The CFTC is pro-innovation. We are not out to get new technology. We are out to get the bad guys.
