Former Coinbase Employee, Adam White, Joins Bakkt

ICE, or the Inter-Continental Exchange, is the entity that runs the global financial and commodities markets and is the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. It recently decided to launch a cryptocurrency trading platform of its own called Bakkt, which is not scheduled for launch until November. In the meantime, they’ve been collecting multiple hotshots from both the traditional and crypto industries. The latest addition is Adam White.

If you’re already involved in the crypto community, the name Adam White should sound familiar, considering that he was the fifth employee to ever join Coinbase. He was a critical part of the development of the institutional-based businesses, but he will now serve as the COO of Bakkt.

White already had announced his intention to exit Coinbase earlier this month. He’d been with Coinbase since 2013, working to bring Wall Street investors to the crypto world. His work allowed Coinbase to reach into the New York economy as well, offering the platform’s assistance in brokering smart contracts and making trades. He even brought in Christine Sandler, who was the global head of sales at NYSE Euronext, and Eric Scro, who was the head of finance at NYSE. Now, it seems that he’s the executive that ICE wants for Bakkt, which is a great turn of events.

A new report from The Block on October 11th confirms that White has been officially hired with Bakkt. This status update comes from the chief executive officer of Bakkt, Kelly Loeffler. The platform involves partnerships with Microsoft and Starbucks to become an “ecosystem for digital assets.” They’ll start off by offering trading services of a bitcoin futures product, though there isn’t a launch date yet. Bakkt’s team is still small, and there are only a few client firms tied in with the project so far.

At this time, there are no additional statements offered from ICE, Coinbase, or White.