By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 24th, 2024
Bakkt has announced that its former chief product officer Mike Blandina will now take the role of CEO after Kelly Loeffler’s departure.
The Bakkt Bitcoin futures exchange, owned by the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), has just appointed a new chief executive officer (CEO). According to an official press release, the company’s former Chief Product Officer Mike Blandina, has now been promoted to the role of CEO. Blandina already assumed the position on Friday, Dec 20.
The appointment of a new CEO was necessary because the company’s founding CEO Kelly Loeffler had to leave the position after her appointment to the United States Senate, to replace Sen. Johnny Isakson from Georgia who is due to retire.
Blandina joined the Bakkt team in April this year, bringing with him some experience from other giant firms including Google and PayPal. ICE founder, chairman, and CEO Jeffrey Sprecher has said that Blandina will now be responsible for steering the company on its road to excellence. Sprecher said:
“As CEO, Mike will chart Bakkt’s strategic direction, payment products and markets, as well as overseeing the regulatory and financial performance of the company. His more than 25 years of experience across product, engineering, strategy and operations will continue to serve us well.”
As part of the announcement, Bakkt has also promoted its chief operating officer (COO) to the position of president. White, who joined Bakkt in October 2018, also has considerable experience from his position as a Coinbase exec and will join Blandina in the driver’s seat as well. Sprecher said about White and his promotion:
“In his new role as President, Adam will focus on digital asset markets, custody and trading, as well as Bakkt’s strategic direction. Adam’s breadth of experience in crypto markets, and his work as a founding executive at Bakkt, give him a unique perspective that will help shape our future successes.”
Bakkt was off to a pretty disappointing start at the beginning but quickly began to set new records for itself and beat previous ones as well. Since ICE’s announcement of the platform, well before its launch, Loeffler had been at the helm of affairs and has ensured the success of the first physically-settled Bitcoin futures contract offering. Loeffler herself brought a wealth of experience to Bakkt has she had spent 16 years in ICE.
Announcing another milestone, the press release states that Bakkt’s volume recently hit 6,226 Bitcoin futures contracts, a new record which is 25% more than the previous. The company hopes to continue to shatter its records and offer its many customers many more options.
As part of its expansion plans, Bakkt announced last month that it was working on building its own mobile app. Called Bakkt Pay, it will further crypto adoption by allowing customers to transact business and handle purchases using Bitcoin and other digital assets.
In November as well, the company unveiled its institutional custody product. According to an official blog post, Bakkt received approval from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) and said that all “clients around the world have the ability to safeguard their assets using Bakkt’s enterprise-grade offering.” The company’s first clients were Galaxy Digital, Pantera Capital, and Tagomi.