Bakkt Can (Finally) Launch Bitcoin Futures, One Year After First Announcement

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Bakkt has finally been given the green light to launch after the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) finally approved the platform’s custodial solution. Custody and physically delivered Bitcoin futures will launch on September 23.

According to an official blog post today, the NYDFS approved Bakkt’s custodial solution, Bakkt Warehouse, and is now certified to custody digital assets.

This follows a series of delays, which has seen the launch of Bakkt postponed by more than a year. Bakkt is intended to cater for institutional interests with a fully-regulated and secure cryptocurrency derivatives platform that they currently believe are “underserved“.

Bakkt’s parent company, the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), started testing physically delivered futures back in July. Having already been approved by the CFTC, today’s NYDFS approval was the final thing the company needed to fully launch.

“Our contracts have already received the green light from the CFTC through the self-certification process and user acceptance testing has begun,” wrote Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler. “With approval by the New York State Department of Financial Services to create Bakkt Trust Company, a qualified custodian, the Bakkt Warehouse will custody bitcoin for physically delivered futures.”

As Crypto Briefing previously reported, there will be two types of futures contracts: a daily settlement contract allowing traders to bet on intra-day fluctuations as well as monthly contracts.

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