Bakkt NYSE: BKKT used its first-quarter 2026 earnings call to outline a three-part strategy centered on regulated digital asset markets, programmable payments and international investments, while emphasizing a reduced cost base and a debt-free balance sheet.
Chief Executive Officer Akshay Naheta said the company is operating amid what he described as a “structural shift” in global payments, with stablecoin infrastructure increasingly positioned as a connective layer across legacy payment rails, modern payment applications and regulated digital asset markets. He pointed to recent strategic transactions in the sector, including acquisitions by Stripe and Mastercard, as evidence that major payments companies are committing capital to stablecoin-related infrastructure.
Naheta said Bakkt is not seeking to become the largest participant in the market, but instead aims to build a material business through regulated infrastructure, disciplined capital allocation and durable rails. He said the company’s regulatory footprint includes U.S. money transmitter licenses, a New York BitLicense, FinCEN registration and an EU virtual asset service provider presence.
Bakkt Frames Strategy Around Three Growth Engines
Naheta said Bakkt is organizing its business around three “growth engines”: Bakkt Markets, Bakkt Agent and Bakkt Global.
Bakkt Markets is the company’s B2B digital asset infrastructure business. Naheta said institutional sales cycles in regulated infrastructure are measured in quarters, with counterparty onboarding, compliance review, integration testing and treasury approvals required before live volume begins. He said Bakkt Markets is expected to generate volume from trading flow and payments flow, including stablecoin flows powered by DTR rails that are now in-house.
The company also plans product upgrades in the second half of 2026, including more than 200 available assets at rollout, social and copy trading, an advanced trading engine and an improved client interface. Naheta also announced that Daniel Ishak has joined as chief commercial officer and will lead the rebuilding of the sales organization.
Bakkt Agent, the company’s programmable money and AI-powered finance layer, is expected to launch sometime in the third quarter, according to Naheta. He said Agent is built around technology, programmability, efficiency and distribution, with stablecoin issuance, redemption, on-ramps and off-ramps native to the platform. The company said it will begin reporting monthly active users after the product launches.
Bakkt Global covers the company’s international investment strategy. As of March 31, 2026, Naheta said Bakkt’s position in Bitcoin Japan Corporation had a carrying value of approximately $31.7 million, up from approximately $11.5 million when the investment was made. He also said Bakkt’s position in India is structured through a warrant subscription in Transchem Limited and remains subject to regulatory approvals, with an illustrative quarter-end mark-to-market value of approximately $44.3 million.
Zoth Partnership Highlights Cross-Border Payments Focus
Naheta highlighted a strategic memorandum of understanding signed in May with Zoth, a privacy-first stablecoin solutions provider focused on South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa. He said Zoth currently processes approximately $300 million in annualized total payments volume, and that Zoth projects the partnership could target approximately $1 billion in annualized TPV by year-end 2026 as enterprise corridors are activated.
The planned corridors include the U.S. to South Asia, the U.S. to the Philippines and Nigeria, the U.S. to the Middle East, the UAE to South Asia, and several sub-Saharan African markets including Uganda, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa. Naheta said Bakkt’s licensing stack is intended to provide the regulated framework around Zoth’s enterprise clients, with definitive commercial agreements expected to follow.
Cost Base Reduced After Loyalty Divestiture
Chief Financial Officer Karen Alexander said the company’s first-quarter 2025 comparable period reflects “a different company,” because Bakkt’s loyalty business was still part of the consolidated cost base before being divested in October 2025 and reported as a discontinued operation beginning in the third quarter of last year.
Alexander said total controllable operating expenses were $31.1 million in the first quarter of 2025 on a reported basis. The loyalty divestiture removed approximately $12.2 million of quarterly controllable operating expense from the run rate, bringing continuing operations controllable OpEx for the year-ago period to $18.9 million. In the first quarter of 2026, controllable OpEx was $18.6 million.
That figure was “materially in line” with the continuing operations comparison, Alexander said, despite approximately $2.5 million of incremental professional services expense tied to the DTR acquisition and Bakkt Global investment activity. She said compensation and benefits, technology and communication, SG&A and other operating expenses all declined year over year, reflecting restructuring efforts in 2025.
As of March 31, 2026, Bakkt had $82.6 million of cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash, including $66.8 million of net cash provided by financing activities. Alexander said the company has no long-term debt and no non-controlling interest.
Company Targets Higher Transaction Volume
Naheta identified three key performance indicators for investors to follow: total transacting volume for Bakkt Markets, monthly active users for Bakkt Agent and strategic asset value for Bakkt Global.
He said total transacting volume was approximately $241 million and that the company’s year-end estimate is approximately $2.5 billion as partner integrations activate and scale. He also said institutional payments volume from counterparties already integrated with the DTR stack is expected to begin by the “conference of the year,” according to the transcript.
For Bakkt Global, Naheta said strategic asset value was approximately $76 million at the end of the first quarter, compared with approximately $21 million of capital commitments across the Japanese and Indian investments. He cautioned that strategic asset value does not represent realized returns and is subject to market and foreign exchange risks.
DTR Integration and Regulatory Footprint Discussed in Q&A
During the question-and-answer session, Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer asked what integration work remains following the close of the DTR transaction. In response, management said remaining work is primarily focused on the compliance stack and the finance and treasury stack, while client-facing integrations include converting APIs into SDKs compliant with U.S. money transmitter license requirements.
Management also said that, now that the acquisition has closed, Bakkt can migrate Bakkt and DTR platforms onto one regulated compliance stack and allow transaction volume data to flow through Bakkt systems for accounting and related purposes.
Asked about additional regulatory approvals outside the U.S. and Europe, management said Bakkt is not pursuing additional approvals related to the payments processing business because it works with regulated partners in the jurisdictions where funds are received. The company said it can currently process transactions into 60 countries and hopes to reach more than 90 countries by the end of the year.
Naheta closed the call by saying the product, license stack and capital are in place, while acknowledging that regulated B2B sales cycles are measured in quarters. He said the company is focused on converting leads, signing definitive agreements and building volume from its pipeline.
About Bakkt NYSE: BKKT
Bakkt Holdings, Inc is a digital asset platform that aims to bridge traditional finance and digital assets by offering institutional-grade custody, trading and settlement services. Established in 2018 by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the company initially made headlines with the launch of its physically settled Bitcoin futures contracts in 2019. Since then, Bakkt has expanded its product lineup to include spot trading of cryptocurrencies, a secure digital wallet for retail customers and a payment gateway that enables merchants to accept digital assets alongside fiat currencies.
The company's core offering centers on its custody infrastructure, which is built to meet robust regulatory and security standards.
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