Bakkt Partners with Starbucks to Test Consumer App and Merchant Portal

A Medium post released on Oct.28 by Mike Blandina, Chief Product Officer at Bakkt revealed that the company's current interests lie in developing a consumer app and merchant portal which they will test with their first launch partner, Starbucks, in the first half of 2020.

Blandina noted that he was resolved to lead the company's payments and technology attempts as Chief Product Officer because of Bakkt’s determination to evolve exciting ideas that would enhance the ways of digital assets and payments. Having 25 years of experience in handling payments, Blandina's expertise will advantage in the development of product breakthroughs that will favor merchants and customers.

One of the points of Blandina's post is that the company intended to share more about its strategy for unlocking the value of digital assets through consumer payments, possibly by developing a consumer app and opening a merchant portal. In this regard, Bakkt designed a model that supports a superset of all digital assets so that investors can seamlessly carry out transactions, store, trade, or transfer their assets in a retail brokerage account.

Blandina believes that by driving more integration and efficiency across digital wallets, payment acceptance, and transaction processing, there are ample opportunities for consumers and merchants to have seamless interaction with digital assets in new ways.

Bakkt stated that they would be delivering opportunities in four major areas, namely: digital asset infrastructure, maximizing control, marketplace access, and trust establishment.

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