Bakkt has announced that already on Monday they will launch user acceptance testing for its Bitcoin Futures. The crypto community is wondering whether it will impact Bitcoin price.
The crypto community has been waiting for Bakkt‘s Bitcoin Futures long enough. After many delays and uncertainty, finally, the company has revealed that on July 22, two days after the Apollo 11’s 50 year anniversary, it will launch the user acceptance tests.
Recently in a blog post, Bakkt’s COO Adam White explained how Bakkt along with ICE have come to this uneasy path of delivering Bitcoin Futures markets to institutions and consumers. He explained:
“This is no small step. This launch will usher in a new standard for accessing crypto markets. Compared to other markets, institutional participation in crypto remains constrained due to limitations like market infrastructure and regulatory certainty. This results in lower trading volumes, liquidity, and price transparency than more established markets like ICE’s Brent Crude futures contract, which has earned global trust in setting the world’s price of crude oil.”
Can This Impact the Price of Bitcoin?
While this is called just a “user acceptance test” and will involve only several “testers”, many have started speculating, whether this will affect the price of Bitcoin. Let us remind you that Bakkt wanted to launch Bitcoin Futures in late 2018, but that deadline didn’t hold its promise and was delayed. Now we see Bakkt setting out testing dates which could indicate that the company has finally complied with the necessary rules and regulations and cleared all the concerns of the SEC.
Since this “user acceptance test” is in beta only and will be available for a limited amount of people, it itself has little chances to affect the price of Bitcoin. However, it’s obvious that after a successful test the “real deal” could come, which some investors could get in early and speculate on the event itself. Though it won’t be a huge price increase, it could shake things up a little.
When Can We Expect The Official Launch?
To put it short and easy – no one knows. Bakkt has its past of delaying deadlines multiple times. But this testing phase could indicate that the company has significantly moved forward and could come to an end in developing this relatively new financial instrument. As already mentioned above, Bakkt wanted to launch Bitcoin Futures in late 2018. The actual product launch could be weeks, maybe months away.
However, some experts raise concerns about government regulations. Since the Libra announcement, altcoins and Bitcoin, in general, has seen remarkable attention from all the governments of the world, including central bank officials and so on.
While among all the talks one thing is clear – Facebook‘s Libra is worse than Bitcoin, it is not clear how the rules and regulations will be developed and updated with regards to this issue. It could be that by the time when Bakkt sets out to launch their Bitcoin Futures product, the U.S. government may have figured out a set of regulations which wouldn’t allow Bakkt to provide its product. However, let’s believe that Bakkt has already planned it out and that they have already complied with all the necessary regulations and licenses.
