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Bakkt Marketplace
Bakkt Marketplace is a publicly traded digital-asset platform launched in 2018 by ICE, now focused on loyalty, payments, and crypto brokerage.
Bakkt Marketplace
Bakkt was conceived inside Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in 2018, with founding CEO Kelly Loeffler — then the wife of ICE chairman Jeffrey Sprecher — positioning it as the bridge between legacy exchange plumbing and institutional crypto markets. The firm launched with a much-anticipated physically settled bitcoin futures contract, a custody warehouse licensed by the New York Department of Financial Services, and a roster of early partners that included Starbucks and Microsoft. That launch, delayed by regulatory hurdles, arrived in September 2019 and underwhelmed volume expectations, setting the stage for a strategic overhaul. Bakkt's strategy today centers on a digital-asset platform that connects loyalty points, cryptocurrency, and payments for retail customers and financial institutions. The firm processes redemption and conversion across airline miles, credit-card rewards, and merchant payment ecosystems through its Bakkt App and its white-label infrastructure for banks. In 2021 it went public via a SPAC merger at a $2.1 billion valuation, and later that year acquired Apex Crypto to expand execution and custody capabilities — a deal that folded in broker-facing crypto trading tools serving fintech apps. The firm's geographic footprint is primarily U.S.-focused, with operations in New York and Atlanta, serving clients such as Choice Hotels and Wyndham Rewards. By mid-2024 Bakkt had cycled through three CEOs since going public: Loeffler departed in 2020, former Citi executive Gavin Michael stepped down in early 2024, and ex-Deloitte Digital CEO Andy Main assumed the role in March 2024. In September 2024 the firm restructured its custody operations, exiting the institutional crypto custody business to concentrate on loyalty and brokerage services. Main publicly described this as a narrowing of focus toward the firm's higher-growth B2B2C payments and loyalty lines. Headcount has been reduced in successive rounds; the firm has not disclosed current professional totals. Bakkt's structural differentiator is the fidelity of its existing loyalty and payments network — a rare asset among digital-asset firms that mostly chase exchange volume or custody fees. Its core infrastructure embeds crypto conversion inside loyalty-program economics rather than trying to win retail traders in an overcrowded brokerage market. That marriage of rewards-currency interchange and regulated crypto settlement is a narrow corridor few competitors can replicate at scale, though the firm's ability to execute it profitably remains the central question.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
2018
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Alpharetta
Corporate office
Alpharetta, GA, United States
Principals
Kelly Loeffler
Founding CEO (former)
Gavin Michael
CEO (former)
Andy Main
CEO
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment and product decisions at Bakkt today?
Andy Main was named CEO in March 2024. He joined from Deloitte Digital, where he led the firm's digital transformation consulting practice. Main succeeded Gavin Michael, a former Citi consumer-banking executive who had run Bakkt since 2021. Strategic direction sits with Main and the board, which includes representatives from ICE.
Does Bakkt hold or custody cryptocurrency on its balance sheet?
No, not in the institutional sense it originally pursued. Bakkt exited the institutional crypto custody business in September 2024, placing its regulated custody license for digital assets into wind-down. The firm continues to facilitate crypto execution and conversion inside its loyalty and brokerage platform, but it no longer operates a standalone custody warehouse for third-party institutional assets.
How is Bakkt related to Intercontinental Exchange (ICE)?
ICE incubated Bakkt and remains a shareholder. The firm was founded in 2018 as a subsidiary before being spun out and taken public via SPAC in 2021. ICE still provides clearing and market-infrastructure services, and Jeffrey Sprecher, ICE's founder and chairman, retains board-level influence, though Bakkt operates as an independent public company.
What did Bakkt acquire from Apex Fintech, and does it still hold those assets?
In 2021 Bakkt acquired Apex Crypto, the crypto execution and liquidity arm of Apex Fintech Solutions, to power white-label trading for fintech apps and broker-dealer clients. After the September 2024 restructuring, Bakkt wound down the standalone Apex Crypto entity and folded the relevant brokerage technology into its loyalty-forward platform.
Which sectors does Bakkt explicitly avoid?
After the September 2024 restructuring, Bakkt has explicitly stepped away from institutional crypto custody and prime-brokerage services. It does not offer OTC block-trading desks, lending against crypto collateral, or staking-as-a-service for institutions — lines that competitors such as Coinbase and Anchorage Digital continue to pursue.
Is Bakkt structured more like a fintech company or a digital-asset exchange?
Financially and operationally, it now patterns as a B2B2C fintech platform. Most revenue comes from loyalty-point redemption, payments processing, and embedded crypto conversion for partner apps — not from exchange-matching-engine fees or institutional custody charges. The shift away from ICE-style exchange economics accelerated with the 2024 custody exit.
Who were Bakkt's early institutional partners and what became of those relationships?
Bakkt's launch partners included Starbucks, which planned to allow customers to pay with converted bitcoin at its stores, and Microsoft, which explored crypto-denominated purchases in its ecosystem. Neither scaled into sustained volume. Starbucks remained a loyalty-program partner, but the partnership narrowed considerably from early ambitions.
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