ICE, the Bakkt Bitcoin Exchange Operator Seeking to Buy eBay

The New York Stock Exchange operator, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) along with Bakkt, the Bitcoin trading platform, is rumored to make an informal proposal to acquire eBay, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. The value of the acquisition is estimated and valued at $30 billion.

Established in the year 1995, eBay claims an average user base that consists of active 183 million buyers globally, which is a rise of 2% compared to the previous quarter. This was recorded in the 4^th quarter of the year 2019, according to a report by data researcher Statista.

WSJ also highlights this as not the first offer by ICE made to buy out an e-commerce giant. So now as ICE becomes the owner as well as the operator of Bakkt, Bitcoin futures trading platform, Morgan Creek Digital co-founder Anthony Pompliano indicates a gross positive by making the ICE owner, Jeffrey Sprecher, govern all the three primary platforms.

Bakkt specializes in servicing institutional investors and is currently developing a consumer app for BTC. Pompliano writes in a report that,

The owner of the New York Stock Exchange is thinking about taking over eBay at a valuation of more than $30 billion. This is the same company that realized the importance of Bitcoin enough to start Bakkt. Would be incredible to combine NYSE, Bakkt, & eBay under one roof.

As the number of legacy firms entering the market keeps on rising, the first-movers get even more advantages. ICE aims to mitigate the gap between emerging digital money and the financial industry, while it is also touted to be one of the largest players in the financial industry.

Bakkt, meanwhile, is endeavoring to launch a user app in the year 2020 expected to make the mobility of cryptocurrencies easy, letting consumers buy an instant commodity via currencies like Bitcoin. It is constructed as a conventional app for payments, and will also reportedly rival against the consumer payments products. It will compete in closer proximity to PayPal as compared to Coinbase. Though unclear is the evidence under the ICE expanse, of interaction that might happen between eBay & Bakkt or even Bitcoin. Earlier, Sprecher has also made apparent his goals regarding improving the presence of Bitcoin globally.

In an interview with Fortune in 2018, Sprecher remarked,

Bitcoin would greatly simplify the movement of global money. It has the potential to become the first worldwide currency.

ICE’s presence in the arena of cryptocurrencies was made evident with the release of Bakkt, its fresh trading platform, that let institutional investors in gaining more exposure to bitcoin via futures contracts that were physically-settled. Though the early growth was sluggish, Bakkt soon started picking up the pace. It then released its options product for the month of December.

This was done to be aligned with the market competition by the CME Group. CME launched its own bitcoin trading options last month that slowly grew Bakkt’s single day expected volume. This competition is also keeping up with some other leading platforms who are earnestly seeking a profit from the Bitcoin derivatives.

According to Skew, the data research firm, the open interest for global Bitcoin futures on Monday, was estimated at more than $4 billion, which is a 60% rise as compared to the year’s beginning.