Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), also the parent of NYSE, announced on Wednesday its decision to acquire loyalty program provider Bridge2 Solutions, whose ownership will be transferred to its subsidiary Bakkt.
As detailed in the press release, Bakkt will utilize its proceeds from its Series B funding round, which is expected to be closed in this quarter.
Bridge2 Solutions is a software as a service (SaaS) platform primarily managing loyalty rewards for merchants and institutions with a reported combined figure of $60 million in rewards.
With the integration of Bridge2 Solutions, the crypto platform is planning to accelerate the development of its consumer application, providing digital asset aggregation, conversion, and Payments through a single platform.
Mentioning Bakkt’s quick market dominance and the recent acquisition, Jeffrey Sprecher, chairman and CEO of ICE, said: “Bakkt was created to help bring transparency and trust to the previously unregulated digital asset markets. With the launch of the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt futures and options markets, the company has achieved quick success with its custody and trading offering.”
“Bakkt’s second round of funding, and its acquisition of Bridge2 Solutions, will help accelerate the development of Bakkt’s consumer application, which has been a key part of our strategy since we first looked at this market.”
ICE has also approached e-commerce giant eBay with an offer to take over. An offering of around $30 billion is reportedly made; however it is yet to be confirmed.
Demand for crypto is increasing
Bakkt is offering cash-settled Bitcoin futures in the United States market and also jumped into offering margin trading facilities. The latter, however, is not seeing enough volume from the traders with the presence of major platforms like Deribit.
“With the launch of the Bakkt app, we will, for the first time, offer consumers a robust platform to consolidate and use all of their digital assets, from crypto to loyalty points to in game tokens, in one user-friendly wallet,” said Mike Blandina, CEO of Bakkt.
Meanwhile, Bakkt President Adam White recently hinted that the platform is considering to add support for altcoins as well, Finance Magnates reported.
