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ICE Remains ‘Agnostic’ to Prices as Digital Assets Will Definitely Survive, CEO States

Last week, the crypto market was experiencing not the best times, with many currencies dropping sufficiently. Over that period, Bitcoin lost almost 30 percent of its value. Fortunately, starting from this Monday, the market is showing marginal recovery, with Bitcoin price finally surging past its sentimental barrier of $4000 with its valuation just crossing $70 billion.

The recent situation prompted jitters among investors but did not address optimism of Jeffrey Sprecher, the CEO of one of the world’s biggest exchange operators Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.

Speaking at the CoinDesk’s Consensus: Invest conference on Tuesday, Sprecher said that when he saw headlines asking “Will digital assets survive?” he would say that “the unequivocal answer is yes.” Sprecher further added:

“We’re kind of agnostic to price.”

The NYSE and its parent firm ICE showed a proactive approach to the crypto space. In January, ICE partnered with blockchain company Blockstream with a view to bring “disciplined” BTC price information to major Wall Street investors. Further, ICE was going to pull data from 15 major exchanges and deliver this information to the biggest financial names, including hedge funds and professional trading firms.

Later in May, ICE announced plans to introduce a trading platform that would allow investors to buy and hold Bitcoin. The exchange was discussing with other financial institutions on working to make ICE-backed bitcoin swap contracts available to the banking institutions.

Sprecher appeared with his wife Kelly Loeffler, the CEO of Bakkt, the bitcoin futures platform backed by ICE and designed to allow digital asset trading and make it easier for merchants to accept cryptos.

Bakkt platform is a cryptocurrency startup launched by the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and backed by such corporate heavyweights as Microsoft and Starbucks. Bakkt aims at achieving the push for price discovery to occur in markets that are regulated at the federal level. The platform will be offering a Bitcoin futures contract that will settle every day in Bitcoin. Loeffler said:

“The Bakkt futures contract will help Bitcoin traders establish a trusted price. Bitcoin now trades at different prices on different exchanges, many of which are unregulated.”

The platform was expected to start operations next month, but the opening has been delayed until January 24, 2019. As Loeffler said, the delay will “give more people time to get on board.”

Starbucks, for which the platform is a way to figure out how to help consumers convert their digital assets into US dollars for use, said that Bakkt will position it to offer new ways of collecting payments as cryptocurrencies gain traction. The company added there is no timeline for when it would allow customers to pay using digital currency.

ICE Remains ‘Agnostic’ to Prices as Digital Assets Will Definitely Survive, CEO States

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