Public Keys Weekly Roundup is an overview of all the latest news and updates from Decrypt This tracker tracks all the major publicly traded crypto firms. The largest clearinghouse of securities in the world is doubling down on Ethereum. Robinhood also launches its March Madness prediction market.
Setbacks for Bakkt Holdings
Bakkt has a new venture in the works. The crypto trading company and provider of payment solutions trades at the New York Stock Exchange with the symbol BKKT. However, there is also some blood in the waters.
Akshay Nheta is the new co-CEO of the firm. Naheta oversaw SoftBank’s investment in GPU and chip giant Nvidia. Bakkt has also signed a contract with Distributed Technologies Research (founded by Naheta) to integrate the stablecoin payments technology into its trading platform.
There is no information about which companies are already using DRT’s stablecoin payment tech.
The company stated in a press release that “once this partnership becomes effective, Bakkt will be in a position to unlock new revenue channels in crypto trading, stablecoin payment, and add efficiency to the rapidly expanding cross-border payments markets.”
But the company began the week in the uncomfortable position of having to announce that two of its largest clients—Bank of America and Webull—are not renewing their commercial agreements. Webull was responsible for 74% (or the revenue) of crypto services in this company’s SEC report.
Bakkt’s future hasn’t always looked grim. Last year at this time, Bakkt had announced an international expansion. A few weeks later the company informed SEC they weren’t certain it would last another 12 months.
Bakkt’s rapid pivoting is due to its strong links to Wall Street. It has also been allowed a great deal of freedom to determine what it wants to do.
Bakkt is a good example. It was launched in 2018, by Intercontinental Exchange (also known as ICE), the parent of the New York Stock Exchange. Bakkt was initially envisioned as a Bitcoin custody and futures platform.
In its earnings report, which was delayed, Intercontinental Exchange, its parent company, revealed that the company sold its custody division to Intercontinental Exchange for $1.5M.
In its quarterly earnings report, the company said that “the divestiture will streamline operations and reduce operating costs by approximately $3.8million annually while freeing up about $3.0million of capital previously held as regulatory reserves.”
It must be ICE to have a parent company that is so supportive.
Tea leaves for tokenization
RWA geeks and Tokenization: Pay attention. Market infrastructure companies have begun to pick favorites as RWA (real-world assets) surpasses 19 billion dollars.
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, or DTCC, has joined the ERC3643 Association, the company said on Thursday.
DTCC, for those who don’t know it already: is the largest central depository of securities in the world. It is responsible for the majority of U.S. clearing, trade reporting, and settlement. By 2023, this company owned by banks and institutions will have processed $3 quadrillion worth of securities transactions.
ComposerX has now added ERC-3643 support to DTCC’s platform for tokenized securities.
This is all about the largest securities settlement corporation of the world investing in Ethereum. Where it goes, other will follow. Japan Securities Clearing Corporation is collaborating with DTCC since last year to test settlements using Ethereum.
It doesn’t necessarily mean that the clearinghouses around the globe have come to a consensus.
You can also read about the advantages of using Ledger Insights explains, Euroclear has built its tokenization platform on the Corda blockchain—although it’s not exclusively tied to it. Hong Kong’s central depository of securities has previously favored the Canton Network.
Robinhood sets its sights on the Prediction Markets
Popular trading app Robinhood has made a big push into prediction markets with a new feature that lets users gamble—er, speculate—on sports.
After its March Madness market announcement, the company announced a second one inviting users to place a wager as to whether Fed funds rates will be higher than 4% or above 4.25% following the next Federal Open Markets Committee Meeting.
It was a prediction market of the U.S. Presidential election. Only American users were allowed to participate. This was seen as a kind of shot at the would-be competitors Polymarket. Polymarket had never allowed U.S. players to bet on their platform and needed to prove to regulators it made an effort to keep out would-be violators who used VPNs.
Now, Robinhood is partnering with Kalshi. Kalshi’s long legal battle with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission was won in October.
Analysts estimated that Robinhood’s venture into prediction markets would create a $260-million stream for the firm, which is listed on Nasdaq with the HOOD code.
Compass point, an independent research firm, gave Robinhood a Buy rating when it began to cover the company earlier this week.
Happy Fri-M&A
Unnamed sources said that Coinbase has advanced discussions to purchase Derebit’s crypto derivatives exchange. Bloomberg. It was so late that the news almost did not make it to this issue of Public Keys.
Derebit was founded in 2016 and is currently the largest Bitcoin and Ethereum platform. It boasts of having 85% market share in BTC derivatives and ETH derivatives.
Coinbase already offers derivatives trading, but not in the United Kingdom or Spain—two regions where Derebit is available. Derebit, on the other hand, isn’t available in the U.S. where Coinbase has the majority of its clients.
Anonymous sources have told Bloomberg The companies had already informed the regulators of Dubai about their impending agreement, as Derebit holds a license in Dubai that will be transferred to Coinbase should the deal go through.
In early 2018, the outlet claimed that Coinbase rival Kraken wanted to acquire it. Unnamed sources who were familiar with the talks at the time estimated the value of the exchange to be between $4-5 Billion.
Coinbase’s COIN stock, which is listed on Nasdaq and trades under that ticker, has gained some momentum in the last few minutes before the close. As of the writing date, but was trading for $188.69. Its opening price had dropped by 0.85%.
Other Keys
Strategists began the week as a lamb but ended with an oath to do more. It was the smallest Bitcoin acquisition yet for this software company which is listed on Nasdaq as MSTR. The purchase of 130 Bitcoins valued at $10,7 million added to their corporate reserve Monday. Next day it announced a $500,000,000 offer of Strife (STRF), perpetual preferred stock, to finance more BTC purchase. By Friday it increased the size of that offer to $723 millions.
Bitcoin mining stocks suffered another bad week, despite good news coming from no other than the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Yesterday, Securities and Exchange Commission clarified that Bitcoin-mining operations do not “involve the offering or sale of securities.” Phew, right? More like meh. By Friday afternoon, the top publicly-traded miners MARA CleanSpark Bitdeer and Bitdeer all had lost some percentage points.
Bitfarms has completed the acquisition of Stronghold for $175,000,000.
You shouldn’t be too sorry for Kraken, who missed out on the Derebit deal. In a $1.5 billion deal announced on Thursday, Kraken exchange acquired NinjaTrader futures brokerage. The exchange confirmed that Decrypt The company announced earlier in the month it plans to become public but refused to give a timetable.
Finally, what does Dubai have to offer for spring vacation? Dubai Financial Services Authority has issued a call to “expressions” of interest from companies that want to test “tokenization” services in their regulatory sandbox. They must act quickly, as the deadline for submitting their applications is April 24th 2025.
