Digital Currency Revolution Series: Bakkt’s App Service On Cards As ICE Bids To Acquire Bridge2 Solutions

Intercontinental Exchange’s (ICE-backed) ‘Bakkt’ has time and again been in the news for their new services in digital asset segment.

Well, on the back of these successful launch and the buzzing announcement of bitcoin options in December with the mounting interests their BTC futures of physical delivery, as part of their other core tenet of mission statement, “unlocking the value of digital assets” through consumer payments. Back in 2019, they had announced Bakkt Cryptocurrency-Centric Consumer App by 2020. Thereby, it is understood that derivatives market among the crypto space is not the only area Bakkt wants to target.

ICE has made an announcement to make yet another acquisition deal of a leading provider of loyalty solutions for both consumers and merchants. Earlier this week, ICE has already announced to tap eBay for an acquisition deal. However, they aren’t officially negotiating at this juncture.

They have now announced in a press release to acquire Bridge2 Solutions, which is a software as a service, or SaaS, platform. 

Bridge2 Solutions currently associates with umpteen number of the world’s largest retail companies, such as, Target, Amazon and BP etc. Hence, the lingering optimism on crypto adoption has been luring the crypto-enthusiasts and the constructive development is likely to bring in prosperities for the entire crypto-industry. ICE will bid for the acquisition through Bakkt’s series B funding.

On the deal, the CEO of Bakkt, Mike Blandina, said in the press release: “with the launch of the Bakkt app, we will, for the first time, offer consumers a robust platform to consolidate and use all of their digital assets, from crypto to loyalty points to in game tokens, in one user-friendly wallet.” 

Mike Blandina had stated that “over the last year, we’ve assembled a strong team of payments engineers and are nearing completion of our core payments and compliance platform, 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”.

To sum up, Bakkt seems to be intending to unveil new app driven by high utilities to achieve customer delight. The utility may include coupons, customer rewards, loyalty points from various companies as cash etc.