Public keys are weekly summary Decryption This tracks major crypto companies that are publicly traded. This week: After predicting it would not survive this long, Bakkt Holdings has undergone another transformation. The world’s largest securities clearing house doubles with Ethereum. Robin Hood launches the forecast market for crazy brackets in March.
Bakkt Holdings set
A new business is currently underway for Crypto Trading and Payment Solutions Company Bakkt. However, there is a bit of blood in the water.
The company adopted Akshay Naheta, Akshay Naheta, who oversaw SoftBank’s investment in chip maker arm and GPU giant Nvidia. Bakkt also signed a contract with research into distributed technology founded by Naheta, integrating Stablecoin-based Payments Tech into its crypto trading platform.
It is unknown which companies are already using DRT’s Stablecoin Payments Tech.
“When this partnership is implemented, Bakkt believes it will unlock new revenue streams for crypto transactions and Stablecoin Payments, adding efficiency to the vast and rapidly growing cross-border payment market,” the company said in a press release.
However, the company began the week in an unpleasant position that it had to announce that its two biggest clients, the US and Webbre, had not renewed its commercial contracts. The worst line in the company’s SEC filing: Webull represents 74% of its crypto services revenue.
This is not the first time things have looked bleak for Bakkt. Around this time last year, the company had just announced a major international expansion. Then, a few weeks later, the SEC didn’t know if another 12 months would survive.
If Bakkt appears to be pivoting at a dizzying speed, don’t forget that he has a strong connection to Wall Street and gives him plenty of space to figure out what kind of company he wants to be.
A proper case: BAKKT was launched in 2018 by the InterContinental Exchange. This also includes ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. The first vision was for Bakkt to act as a regulated Bitcoin futures and custody platform.
However, this week, the company revealed in its delayed revenue report that it sold its ward for $1.5 million outside its parent company, InterContinental Exchange.
“The sale is expected to streamline operations by reducing operating expenses by $3.8 million a year and freeing up approximately $3.0 million in capital for regulated reserves,” the company wrote in its revenue report.
It must be ice with such a supportive parent company.
Tokenized tea leaves
Tokenization and RWA Geek: Be careful. Market infrastructure companies are picking their favorites so that RWA, or real-world asset segments, exceed $19 billion.
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has joined the ERC3643 Association, the company said Thursday.
For those who are not yet known, DTCC is the world’s largest central securities depository. It handles most of the clearing, settlement and trade reports for the US market. Owned by bank and institutional clients, the company processed three times the amount of securities transactions in 2023.
In connection with that announcement, DTCC has added support to Composerx, the tokenized securities platform for ERC-3643 tokens.
This sums up the world’s largest securities settlement company, doubling Ethereum. And then others follow, where it goes. Japan Securities Clearing Corporation has been working with DTCC to test Ethereum settlements since last year.
However, that does not mean that the global securities clearing houses have reached a consensus.
As Ledger Insights Euroclear has built a tokenization platform on the Corda blockchain, but that’s not all. Hong Kong’s central securities depository is also biased towards the canton network.
Robinhood sets the site in forecast market
The popular trading app Robinhood has made a big push to the forecast market with new features that allow users to gamble (er, guess) in sports.
After making a big announcement at March Madness Markets, the company added a new one that invites users to bet on whether the Fed fund rate will exceed 4% or 4.25% after the next Federal Open Market Committee meeting.
The company attempted its first forecast market in the US presidential election forecast market last October. Only American users were open. At the time, it seemed like a shot across a competitor’s polymet bow. This was not something that has never been opened to our bettors, and we had to assure the regulator that we were trying to stop our efforts to use VPNs and become rule breakers.
But now, Robinhood is partnering with Karshi. In October, Calci won a long-standing legal battle with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Analysts estimate that Robinhood’s entry into the forecast market could create a $260 million stream for the company.
Earlier this week, Robinhood received a “buy” rating from research firm Compass Point as it began reporting on the company.
Happy Freeme & A
Coinbase is in advanced discussions to purchase crypto derivatives exchange derebit, an unnamed source said Bloomberg. The news broke enough late, and few public keys in this version appeared.
Founded in 2016, Derebit is the world’s largest platform for Bitcoin and Ethereum options. At the time of writing, it has seen a volume worth $3 billion a day, boasting that 85% of the BTC and ETH derivatives market is cornered.
Coinbase already offers derivative trading, but not in the UK or Spain. There are two regions where Derevit is available. Conversely, Derebit is not available in the US, where Coinbase serves most of its customers.
An anonymous source said Bloomberg Derebit has a license to be transferred to Coinbase if a transaction is made, indicating that companies are already upset about an impending transaction to Dubai regulators.
Earlier this year, the news outlet reported that Coinbase competitor Kraken was aiming for it for the acquisition. At the time, an unknown source familiar with these talks estimated that the exchange of derivatives was worth between $4 million and $5 billion.
Coinbase, trading on the Nasdaq under the coin ticker, picked up a bit of upward momentum before the closing bell. However, at the time of writing, he changed hands at $188.69, dragging his operating price by 0.85%.
Other keys
The strategy started the week like a lamb and ended it by saying Moar. The software company trading on NASDAQ under the MSTR ticker purchased the smallest bitcoin on Monday by adding $10.7 million in 130 bitcoins to its corporate reserve. The next day, it announced its permanent preferred stock of the $500 Million Battle (STRF) to fund more BTC acquisitions. Then, by Friday, the service had expanded to $723 million.
Bitcoin mining stocks had an even more difficult week despite having received good news from outside the Securities and Exchange Commission. Yesterday, securities regulators revealed that Bitcoin mining operations were “not accompanied by securities offers and sales.” Fau, is that so? Like meh. Miners Mara, Clean Spark and Bitdia, published at the top, had all lost a few percentage points by Friday afternoon.
But that’s not all the bad news for miners. BitFarm has completed the acquisition of the location on a $175 million deal.
Don’t feel too bad for Kraken to miss out on the acquisition of Derebit. On Thursday, the exchange announced it had acquired futures broker Ninjatrader on a contract worth $1.5 billion. The exchange has been confirmed Decryption Earlier this month, they plan to make it public, but refused to share their timeline.
And finally, how does Dubai sound during spring break? The Dubai Financial Services Authority has announced a call for “expressions of interest” from companies that want to experiment with “tokenization services” in their regulatory sandboxes. However, they need to move fast and the deadline is April 24, 2025.
