The company last set 24 January 2019 as the launch date, but Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has not yet received the necessary approvals from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Considering the pace the agency has been moving, it is unlikely that approvals will be secured in time to hit that target. This would be the second postponement. ICE had initially aimed to launch Bakkt in December 2018, but due to the ‘volume of interest’ in the company and the ‘work required to get all the pieces in place’, the delay could not be avoided.
More precisely, the CFTC must grant an exemption for Bakkt’s plan to custody Bitcoin on behalf of its clients in its own ‘warehouse’. CFTC regulations normally require that customer funds be held by a bank, trust company, or futures commission merchant (FCM).
However, the agency’s staff has finished reviewing Bakkt’s exemption request, and passed it to the commission, but now the commissioners have to vote on whether to put out the proposal for public comment. After the 30-day comment period, the commissioners would likely take at least a couple days to read the comments, and then vote on the proposal itself. That already would push any final vote past Bakkt’s 24 January launch target.
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