Bakkt Holdings, an institutional and retail-facing digital asset platform founded by Intercontinental Exchange, has suffered a drawdown of -6.4% after closing a volatile first day of trading as a publicly listed company on the New York Stock Exchange. After launching on the NYSE at $9.45 on the morning of Oct. 18, BKKT rose by roughly 3.3% up to $9.77 during its first 30 minutes of trading.
BKKT was trading at $8.76 by the day’s close.
After BKKT rose to $9.77, traders quickly moved to take profits, causing prices to slump by -9.5%, down to $8.84, followed by lunchtime. According to Bloomberg, BKKT was trading at $8.76 by the day’s close after having shed almost -7% from its opening. Bakkt went public via a merger deal with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), VPC Impact Acquisition Holdings, on Oct. 15. Bakkt initially launched in 2018 as a cryptocurrency custodian. The firm has since pivoted to launch institutional-facing bitcoin futures contracts and a retail crypto-asset payments app.
Bakkt is not Intercontinental Exchange’s first foray into cryptocurrency.
Like Bakkt, Coinbase posted a bearish performance for its first day of public trading, shedding -13.8% from a starting price of $381 over the course of the day. Bakkt is not Intercontinental Exchange’s first foray into cryptocurrency, with the firm having participated as a lead investor in Coinbase’s Series C $75 million funding round in January 2015. Intercontinental Exchange sold its stake in Coinbase for $1.2 billion during the first quarter of 2021. Earlier this month, Bakkt announced partnered with Google to enable its retail app users to make payments from their digital asset balances using Google Pay.
