New York Stock Exchange owner ICE started leaning into digital assets long before most incumbent exchanges when it launched Bakkt. Finding product-market fit has been a long and winding road, all the harder because it’s a listed company. In 2022 it paid $200 million to acquire Apex Crypto, a B2B2C venture that provides white labelled crypto trading services. Now the company is doubling down on this business, announcing a collaboration with stablecoin payments firm Distributed Technologies Research (DTR), whose CEO and co-founder Akshay Naheta becomes co-CEO of Bakkt.
Naheta’s claim to fame is as a rising star at SoftBank where he was a Managing Partner and responsible for investments in ARM and Nvidia, before founding Distributed Technologies Research. DTR launched its API driven B2B payment solutions three months ago. While at Softbank, Naheta also previously sat on Bakkt’s board.
Although Bakkt continues to make losses, it has paired them significantly, with a Q4 2024 operating loss of $11.7 million, down from $78.5 million the previous year.
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