The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has decided to delay the launch of the Bakkt platform once again for later in 2019. In a recent earnings call, the CEO of the ICE, Jeff Sprecher, announced that the Bakkt platform will be launched later in 2019. This is not the first time that the platform is delayed for a later date. Although this is something bearish, the market did not react negatively about Sprecher’s comments.

Bakkt Delayed Once Again

During a recent earnings call, Mr. Sprecher announced what everyone did not want to hear: the Bakkt platform has been delayed once again. The call focused on the financial results of the ICE. He mentioned that the company spent more than $1 billion on strategic initiatives.

Regarding the expenses related to the Bakkt platform, Scott Hill, the Company’s CFO, said that their investment in Bakkt will generate expenses between $20 million and $25 million. Mr. Hill informed that they will be updating the community regarding the level of investment as we move through the year.

About the expected returns from these investments, Sprecher mentioned that Bakkt platform is different than the usual way the ICE does business.

Sprecher commented on this issue:

“So it’s a bit of a moonshot bet and it’s been organised in a manner that is very different than the way ICE typically does businesses […] They’re well along in building out an infrastructure that I think you’ll see launch later this year.”

Bakkt was announced back in August last year and received the attention of the whole crypto market. The launching date was set for early 2019. However, it has been delayed because of the U.S. Commodity Futures and Trading Commission (SFTC) and how handled the requests presented by the ICE.

This platform is expected to offer Bitcoin futures similar to the ones offered by the CME and the CBOE. But Bakkt’s futures contracts will not be cash settled. Individuals will be handling physical Bitcoin. The platform has been specifically designed for institutional and traditional investors. This is why the market is very excited about it.

There are several experts and analysts that believe that the launching of this platform is one of the reasons to be bullish about Bitcoin’s future. Although the launching date has been delayed once again, the Bitcoin price did not operate in a negative way. At the time of writing, the most popular digital asset has a market cap of $64.30 billion. Each Bitcoin can be purchased for $3,667.