Bakkt sheds more than 6% on its first day of public trading
Bakkt (BKKT), an institutional and retail-facing digital asset platform founded by Intercontinental Exchange, has suffered a drawdown of -6.4% after closing a volatile first day of trading as a publicly listed company.
After launching on the New York Stock Exchange at $9.45 on Monday morning, BKKT rose by roughly 3.3% up to $9.77 during its first 30 minutes of trading. However, traders quickly moved to take profits, causing prices to slump by -9.5% down to $8.84.
According to Bloomberg, BKKT was trading at $8.76 by the day’s close after having shed almost -7% from its opening.
Bakkt went public via a merger deal with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), VPC Impact Acquisition Holdings, on Friday.
Bakkt initially launched in 2018 as a cryptocurrency custodian. The firm has since pivoted to launch institutional-facing Bitcoin futures contracts and a retail crypto asset payments app.
Related: Crypto finserv firm Bakkt to soon trade publicly on New York Stock Exchange
Bakkt is not Intercontinental Exchange’s first foray into cryptocurrency, with the firm having participated as a lead investor in Coinbase’s Series C $75-million funding round in January 2015.
Like Bakkt, Coinbase posted a bearish performance for its first day of public trading, shedding -13.8% from a starting price of $381 over the course of the day. Intercontinental Exchange sold its stake in Coinbase for $1.2 billion during the first quarter of 2021.
Earlier this month, Bakkt announced a partnership with Google to enable its retail app users to make payments from their digital asset balances using Google Pay.