ICE Snaps Up Loyalty Program Supplier Bridge2 to Increase Bakkt’s Shopper Play

Intercontinental Alternate (ICE), the bitcoin warehouse’s guardian firm, announced Wednesday it had agreed to amass Bridge2 Options, a loyalty resolution supplier for each retailers and shoppers. Bakkt, in flip, will use its funds from its ongoing Collection B fundraising spherical to amass Bridge2 and apply its instruments to its client app.

In an announcement, Bakkt CEO Mike Blandina wrote, “with the launch of the Bakkt app, we’ll, for the primary time, supply shoppers a sturdy platform to consolidate and use all of their digital property, from crypto to loyalty factors to in recreation tokens, in a single user-friendly pockets.” 

Bakkt will reap the benefits of Bridge2’s present relationships with banks and retailers, in addition to its “Loyalty Pay resolution” to launch new merchandise, he stated. 

The corporate first revealed its intention to build a mobile consumer app final October, when Blandina, then the chief product officer, wrote in a weblog submit that Bakkt hoped to “make it straightforward for shoppers to find and unlock the worth of digital property,” in addition to facilitate transactions and monitoring.

“Retailers achieve entry to a broader set of consumers with expanded spending energy,” Blandina wrote on the time.

The app is prone to assist extra than simply bitcoin, although a selected listing of supported property or different digital types of worth haven’t but been launched.

Bakkt beforehand introduced it was concentrating on a launch date within the first half of 2020.

Bakkt launched final 12 months as an institutional-focused bitcoin warehouse, providing futures and choices contracts along with guardian firm ICE. Its former CEO, Kelly Loeffler, was appointed to the U.S. Senate by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, resulting in Blandina and COO Adam White’s elevations to the CEO and president roles, respectively.