Bakkt, the highly anticipated Bitcoin futures exchange platform has announced that it is on a hiring spree as it prepares to launch its platform as soon as possible.
Following, a couple of delays (thus far), the CEO of the Intercontinental Exchange backed start-up said that she and her team are not waiting around for the approval that they await from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
In its latest announcement published to its Twitter handle, the platform linked to their updated web page that listed 8 open vacancies, all of which are high ranking senior positions.
On its careers page, Bakkt has listed that it seeks to hire a director of blockchain engineering, a director of security engineering and one in the finance department. Further, the platform is seeking to hire a senior full stack engineer, mobile and software development engineers. Finally, the platform seeks a senior institutional sales manager with experience in North America or Asia. All these positions are available at the New York headquarters or Atlanta with additional options at select locations in Hong Kong, Tokyo, San Francisco, London, Tel Aviv, and Singapore.
Bakkt was initially expected to go live back on December 12th, 2018 but its launch was postponed to January 24th, 2019 due to lack of proper regulatory approval. The new date is however not feasible as the CFTC has failed to resume its normal processes following a United States government shut down that is in its third week now.
In a recent update, the Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler stated that they were postponing the launch of the platform indefinitely, assumable until the CFTC regulators return to office.
According to CFTC processes, to approve the proposed exemption, the regulator will conduct a 30-day public comment period in which it will invite the public to submit their views on the matter after which the commission is expected to make a determination. The timeline after the comment period is not defined and could possibly take a while.
The uncertainty in the approval of the platform to custody Bitcoin for its clients has however not stopped the team from making any preparations. Last month, the platform announced the conclusion of a funding round that saw it raise as much as $182.5 million funds that it is already putting to use with its recent acquisition of “certain assets” belonging to Rosenthal Collins Group (RCG).
Most of the cryptocurrency community believes that the launch of this institutional product should at the very least spark a much anticipated Bitcoin bull-run.
