Bakkt Would Be Struggling Even Without A Crypto Winter

SummaryThe crypto winter and stock market crash had led to a decline in Bakkt's common shares of nearly 95% from all-time highs.The company continues to make progress in signing new partnerships with a healthy range of financial services firms.Crypto adoption beyond asset speculation has faltered. This does not point to a bright future for Bakkt.Bakkt (BKKT) has seen its valuation fall precipitously since going public in the autumn of 2021. The malaise faced by the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) spinout mirrors that of many fintechs from the now-dead SPAC boom. The golden era of unfettered investor enthusiasm has given way as inflation continues to surge and a hawkish Fed scrambles to taper it. Market liquidity has been declining on the back of increasingly aggressive rate hikes as an inverting yield curve provides ominous cues for a possible recession.The current seemingly perennial collapse is not due to operational issues with the crypto infrastructure business, but the unfortunate fate of going public just as a crypto winter and stock market collapse went into full swing. The company is now down nearly 95% from all-time highs.BKKT data by YChartsBakkt is trusted by several financial services firms to deliver crypto capabilities to their customers. Indeed, the company has signed a strategic alliance with Visa (V) to provide crypto solutions to Visa's network, recently launched in Fiserv (FISV) AppMarket, and has signed a p...