Bakkt Expands Capabilities to New Markets

In the early weeks of 2024, we seem to be seeing a trend in the crypto industry of firms expanding their services to more countries. A few weeks ago, OKX announced an expansion into the Middle East and now, Bakkt, a crypto solutions provider, is on track to do the same.  As announced on January 24, 2024, Bakkt will be bringing its services to new international markets in Asia, Europe, North America, and South America.

Bakkt Going Global

As per the official press release, this expansion is being done with the help of Bakkt’s existing clients Hapi and SogoTrade. These partnerships have already helped the company penetrate specific markets in the past. For example, Hapi, a stock trading app, has allowed Bakkt to operate in several countries in Latin America like Argentina and Mexico in the past. Now, these services will be extended to Brazil, Guatemala, and Spain.

With SogoTrade, Bakkt can now expand into Hong Kong and Singapore. While this is impressive already, the company has hinted at a desire to reach even more international destinations in the future.

“International expansion remains a key priority for us in 2024. At Bakkt, we believe that crypto has the power to enhance financial inclusivity and connect communities within the global economy,” said Gavin Michael, CEO of Bakkt.

For the near future, Bakkt is eyeing expansion in the UK and Australian markets. Its CEO has also said that its priority is making crypto more accessible to the millions of people who live in these regions while also catering to their specific needs.

The Crypto Industry Expanding

While the recent news from Bakkt and OKX spells good fortunes for those companies, it also had positive implications for the crypto industry at large. In 2022 and some parts of 2023, the industry was deep in the winter. And as we all know, a crypto winter doesn’t just mean that token prices are down but that companies in the space will face hard times.

These hard times tend to see them firing staff, canceling planned projects, and cutting down on their operations to save costs. The fact that several crypto companies are expanding abroad could be taken as s sign that the industry is in recovery.

This also comes a few weeks after the Bitcoin ETF was approved. One of the reasons why the industry was so excited about its approval was because it would lead to more investment in crypto as a whole. This, in turn, could spark more industry-wide growth. And while we will need to wait a while before we see the long-term effects of the ETF, the crypto industry potentially seeing more growth can only benefit stakeholders at all levels.