Our first acquisition

Expanding Bakkt’s risk management, compliance and treasury operations

As we work to complete our first acquisition, the New Year is starting as deliberately as 2018 ended — punctuated by the closing of our first capital raise.

As those who’ve followed us since our first announcement in August know, our mission is to build the first integrated, institutional grade exchange-traded markets and custody solution for physical delivery of digital assets. In parallel, we’re building a secure, scalable platform for transacting with digital assets so that our regulated ecosystem serves consumers, merchants and institutions.

To advance that effort, I’m pleased to share that we have entered into an agreement to acquire certain assets of Rosenthal Collins Group (RCG), an independent futures commission merchant with nearly 100 years of earning clients’ trust. In December, RCG announced the sale of all its customer accounts to Marex Spectron, one of the world’s largest commodity brokers. As part of that transaction, our aim was to purchase certain valuable assets related to developing our platform. We expect to close the transaction in February, and are excited to welcome members of the RCG team to Bakkt.

How does this advance our work? First, it will enhance our risk management and treasury operations with systems and expertise. Other aspects of the transaction will contribute to our regulatory, AML/KYC and customer service operations as we help enable digital asset acceptance by bringing more choice and control to buyers and sellers.

This acquisition underlines the fact we’re not standing still as we await regulatory approval by the CFTC for the launch of regulated trading in our crypto markets. Our mission requires significant investment in technology to establish an innovative platform, as well as financial market expertise to deliver the most trusted fintech ecosystem for digital assets.

Our vision is to bring digital assets into the mainstream by enabling efficient transactions between consumers and merchants. Distributed ledger technology (DLT) has the potential to contribute to a lean, modern transaction platform that is compatible with existing merchant infrastructure. While DLT and cryptocurrencies are early in their development, we are committed to expanding the use of this technology to promote choice by building a fair, efficient platform for digital assets globally.