Intercontinental Exchange Reveals Bakkt For Digital Assets

A leading operator of global exchanges, clearing houses, data and listing services, Interncontinental Exchange (ICE) have announced their intent of forming a new company named Bakkt.

It was revealed that the new company will leverage Mircrosoft cloud solutions in the creation of a global ecosystem for digital assets which is open and regulated and will draw on expertise from leading companies across regulated markets.

Bakkt is said to be designed for consumers and institutions to seamlessly buy, sell, store and spend digital assets which will bring trust, efficiency and commerce to digital assets.

It hopes to develop an open technology that is interoperable with existing market and merchant infrastructure to the blockchain.

Bakkt is the brainchild of Jeff Sprecher, the founder, Chairman and CEO of ICE which many describe as disrupter par excellence and have not failed in any of his business dealings.

Stuttgart Borse Announced ICO Platform

According to news outlets in Germany, the country’s second largest stock exchange, Stuttgart Borse have recently announced its intent to develop and release a new Initial Coin Offering Platform which also doubles as a multilateral crypto trading venue.

This comes after revealing Bison, a zero-fee crypto trading app for the public, which will be released on September.

It seems that the German exchange is setting its sites on primary and secondary markets.

The primary ICO platform will be used to facilitate the proper issuance of digital tokens while the crypto trading venue will boost the changes of success by making them readily available for trade.

CEO at Stuttgart Borse, Alexander Hoptner states that the move to develop a cryptocurrency trading platform is their response to both retail and institutional demand for a regulated and reliable environment for trading with cryptocurrencies.

Crypto Firm IPO Raises $32.5 Million In London Stock Exchange

U.K.-based crypto mining firm, Argo Mining (ticker: ARB) is said to have raised around 25 Million GBP ($32.5 Million) through an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).

It is said to be the first cryptocurrency related company to be listed on LSE.

It planned to raise about 20 Million GBP but have overshoot its target by more than 5 million GBP.

Argo had 156 millon shares accounting to 53.2% of its issued shared capital.

Shares were priced at 16 pence, giving the company a total market valuation of 47 Million GBP which is around $61.2 Million USD.

Jonathan Bixy, the executive chairman at Argo has expressed delight with the strong response from investors which he believes will enable them to accelerate their business growth in multiple jurisdictions.

Several other Crypto Mining Firms has considered doing their IPO, this includes the market leader in crypto mining Bitcoin, which has been rumored to have been conducting pre-IPO.

Other China-based mining companies have also filed of IPO applications with the HongKong like Canaa Creative and Ebang Communications.

Stabucks Goes Crypto

Starbucks is said to have partnered with several industry giants on their own field to form Bakkt aimed for consumer use.

Its partners include Information Technology giant, Microsoft and leading global exchange, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) which owns the New York Stock Exchange, Boston Consulting Group and other leading industry firms.

With this new cryptocurrency platform, consumers and institutions alike can buy, sell, store and spend crypto on a global network that will be released on November.

The platform will be able to convert supported crypto to U.S. dollars that can be used to purchase products and services.

Although this might be a big news for many, it is not the first company to accept digital assets.

Overstock.com was the frist one having supported cryptocurrencies since 2014 with other consumer platforms following suit such as Expedia, Shopify and CheapAir.

Crypto Payment Options To Millions Of Merchants Released By Coinbase

Coinbase Commerce, a cryptocurrency payment provider, has recently announced WooCommerce, with the aim to stimulate cryptocurrency commerce and accelerate mass adoption.

It is a plugin that is supported by WordPress e-commerce platform which is said being used by 28% of all online stores.

With this plugin, online stores will be able to accept cryptocurrencies as a payment option.

While its initiative is commendable, it must be noted that merchants that wishes to use this plug-in requires them to migrate to a new system which might not be a very attractive proposition especially those with low cryptocurrency payment volumes.

This comes after releasing other similar initiatives that allows users to send bitcoins and Litecoin directly.

This includes React Payment buttons and Coinbase Commerece API for Python library with client libraries from Ruby, PHP and Node.js coming shortly. Merchants do not incur transaction fees to accept crypto payments and maintain full control of their funds.

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