(Bloomberg) — Akshay Naheta, a former SoftBank Group official who has overseen some of its biggest deals, has joined Bakkt Holdings Inc. as a co-chief executive officer to help turn around the struggling American crypto trading and custody platform.
Naheta will also be part of the company’s board and will work with Andy Main, the firm’s current CEO, according to a statement from Bakkt Holdings on late Wednesday in the US.
Bakkt, which was spun out of Intercontinental Exchange Inc., went public through a merger with a blank-check vehicle in 2021 and has slumped more than 62% this year as it lost major clients. However, it has permits, including BitLicense from the New York State Department of Financial Services, that are sought-after by global crypto firms.
A former trader at Deutsche Bank AG, Naheta was central to some of SoftBank’s biggest deals. He led a $4 billion investment in Nvidia Corp in 2017, earning $3 billion in profit, and also into Arm Holdings Plc.
He left the Japanese firm to set up Distributed Technologies Research Ltd., which uses blockchain to process stablecoins for cross-border payments. Naheta’s company will integrate its stablecoin-based payments infrastructure with Bakkt’s crypto trading and brokerage technology, subject to regulatory approvals, according to the statement.
“Bakkt has an impeccable regulatory track record, and I will work with Andy to streamline the business into a global pure-play crypto infrastructure provider,” Naheta said in an interview. “Combining Bakkt’s licensing strengths with DTR’s payments infrastructure unlocks a substantial opportunity.”
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