Bakkt to launch consumer app; Starbucks to be testing ground

While Bakkt manged to become to the first to launch physically-backed Bitcoin futures in the United States, the company released an official blog post to detail investors upon the ongoing developments. Through an official statement, the company stated,

“We wanted to share more about our strategy for the other core tenet of our mission — namely “unlocking the value of digital assets” through consumer payments.”

While the users are exposed to digital assets including bitcoin, cashbacks and rewards, Bakkt highlighted their efforts in supporting “superset of digital assets, including cryptocurrencies as seamlessly as investors transact in stocks in a retail brokerage account.” Moreover, the company also shared its vision is to provide a consumer platform for managing a digital asset portfolio, “whether they wish to store, transact, trade or transfer their assets.”

Based on his past experiences, Mike Blandina, Bakkt’s Chief Product Officer mentioned, that by driving more integration and efficiency across digital wallets, transaction processing and payment acceptance, “there are meaningful opportunities for merchants and consumers to seamlessly interact using digital assets in ways that have not been previously considered.” To sum up Bakkt’s efforts, Blandina said that Bakkt’s focus will be on four key areas: digital asset infrastructure, marketplace access, maximizing control and establishing trust. He added,

“All of these efforts amount to supporting the flywheel that drives broader acceptance, which is at the core of our mission that we will continue to bring to reality in 2020.”

While the company continues to grow its team payments engineers, Blandina also stated that Bakkt is nearing completion of its core payments and compliance platform. As an interesting fact, Bakkt will soon test its application with Starbucks, which is expected in the first half of next year.