- Bakkt will soon offer Ethereum trading and storage through its platform
- The company announced the expansion on Friday
- Bakkt recently his the New York Stock Exchange and announced a partnership with Mastercard
Bakkt will allow the purchase of Ethereum in addition to Bitcoin as the platform expands its offering for the first time. The institutional custodian announced the news on Friday, stating that its reason for adding the second biggest cryptocurrency was based on its popularity and market share. The news follows the company’s listing on the New York Stock Exchange last month.
Bakkt Sees Crypto Boom as Reason to Expand
Bakkt has been offering institutional Bitcoin buying and warehousing since 2018, and although there have been suggestions that the platform could expand to support other cryptocurrencies there has never been anything concrete to support this. However, the rumor mill was clearly grinding in the right direction this time as Bakkt published a press release on Friday confirming that it has doubled the number of coins it supports.
In the press release, Bakkt cited its own survey which found that “nearly half of respondents had bought some form of cryptocurrency within the last year”, which it said reinforced the notion that the time was right for expansion.
Ethereum Popularity and Market Cap Explains Rationale
The reason why Ethereum was chosen was given in a single line in the press release, with Bakkt saying that “Ethereum has grown in popularity over the past year, holding a sizeable share of the crypto market second only to Bitcoin.” Bakkt CEO Gavin Michael stated that “Ethereum brings a popular and growing cryptocurrency to our roster” and added that “we are confident that our addition of Ethereum will be a complement to our growing ecosystem of partners and assets.”
Bakkt recently listed on the New York Stock Exchange and shortly afterwards announced partnerships with Mastercard and Fiserv to increase the practical use of cryptocurrencies stored by the company.
