According to the CEO of BAKKT, Mike Blandina, the U.S-based company has no plans to support XRP as part of a further product development.
On January 11, Bakkt CEO Gavin Michael sat down with the podcast Axios Re: Cap to discuss the immediate adoption of Bitcoin (BTC) and other digital assets that led to their decision. However, Michael did not comment on whether the company has decided to stay away from XRP due to Ripple’s legal problems caused by a lawsuit filed by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
Bakkt To Support Other Altcoins
As stated by Michael, Bakkt plans to support several altcoins on its platform subsequently, but XRP is not one of them.
He explained that they entered the crypto space via Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency they made available. Other people were supposed to get involved as part of product development, but XRP is not one.
Michael’s comments on XRP follow the official announcement of Bakkt’s plans to go public. On January 11, Bakkt announced a merger with VPC Impact Acquisition Holdings to allow Bakkt to enter the stock market.
Bakkt also plans to launch an app in March to allow consumers to buy and sell cryptocurrency and manage other digital assets such as loyalty points and gift cards. The goal is to reach more than 30 million customers by 2025, compared to nothing last year. The app, currently only available by invitation, has attracted some 400,000 people seeking early access, according to Bakkt.
If included on the NYSE listing, the company would be worth $ 2.1 billion, said ICE.
SEC’s Lawsuit Against Ripple
Meanwhile, Ripple is battling a $ 1.3 billion SEC lawsuit filed against the company in late December. On January 8, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse emphatically denied the SEC’s baseless accusations and said his company was on the right side of facts and history.
Amid Ripple’s legal troubles, many crypto companies have decided to phase out XRP. Crypto wallet provider and trading platform Blockchain.com announced it was phasing out XRP on January 6, 2020. It followed Coinbase, Binance.US, OKCoin, and others. However, some companies like Uphold prefer to keep XRP on their platforms until the SEC lawsuit resolves.
In a blog post, Revolut told its customers that they could buy and sell assets using the Revolut app as long as the partner site continues to trade XRP. However, if XRP faces removal from all of our partner exchanges, they most likely have to remove XRP. They may also have to stop trading for a short time if their partner’s liquidity changes and can no longer buy or sell XRP.
