Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) is the parent company of New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and have announced a launch date for bitcoin futures on its platform Bakkt, according to a document, that was released on October 22.

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) is a Fortune 500 and Fortune Future 50 company formed in the year 2000 to modernize markets. ICE serves customers by operating the exchanges, clearing houses and information services they rely upon to invest, trade and manage risk across global financial and commodity markets. A leader in market data, ICE Data Services, serves the information and connectivity needs across virtually all asset classes. ICE is the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, which has helped companies raise more capital than any other exchange in the world, driving economic growth and transforming markets.

The company has now created Bakkt, that is designed to enable consumers and institutions to buy, sell, store and spend digital assets seamlessly. Formed with the purpose of bringing trust, efficiency and commerce to digital assets, Bakkt seeks to develop open technology to connect the existing market and merchant infrastructure to the blockchain. The Bakkt project was introduced a while back and already have partners such as Microsoft and Starbucks.

The most recent news states that ICE will list Bakkt Bitcoin (USD) Daily Futures Contracts for trading on December 12th, 2018. These futures are different from the ones that have been released earlier since they will be physically backed by bitcoins.

“Each futures contract calls for delivery of one bitcoin held in the Bakkt Digital Asset Warehouse and will trade in U.S. dollar terms. One daily contract will be listed for trading each Exchange Business Day.”

The document adds that additional information will be available closer to the launch date.

Earlier this year Bakkt stated that the physically backed bitcoin futures contract would be traded versus fiat currencies, namely USD, GBP and EUR to start with. We are now getting closer to the launch date, and a few days ago news came out that Bakkt has hired Conbase’s Adam White, who has been an integral part of Coinbase growth. Furthermore, Bakkt has extensive ties to various Wall Street institutions, because Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) operates 12 different regulated exchanges and marketplaces, including the New York Stock Exchange.

Many are waiting for how this is going to be played out and how the launch will impact the market. In a few weeks, we will know.

Image Source: “Flickr”