Digital asset marketplace Bakkt has enabled its app users to send Bitcoin, cash and gift cards to anyone, regardless of whether the recipient is also a Bakkt customer.
Conducted by broadening Peer-to-Peer (P2P) capabilities, Bakkt users now have increased versatility to send digital assets to family, friends or wider social circles.
“We are excited to introduce our P2P to anyone capabilities to broadly expand consumer payment options in the digital asset space,” said Gavin Michael, Bakkt CEO.
“Bakkt has aimed to provide the app, marketplace and payments infrastructure to make all digital assets transactable, and this new functionality welcomes everyone to have a frictionless digital experience to send and receive bitcoin, gift cards or cash to anyone.”
Bakkt provides its users with a single wallet allowing greater management of digital assets, as well as providing P2P payments with cryptocurrency.
The digital asset marketplace enables its customers to track, spend and send digital assets, allowing for greater understanding of the full scope of a client’s digital assets.
Additionally, the fintech aims to give merchants and loyalty programme sponsors deeper levels of customer engagement and a lower cost of payment acceptance.
Bakkt’s expansion of its payment options comes as cryptocurrency experiences increasing mainstream acceptance with a range of payment platforms and financial institutions opening up to the vertical.
Notably, PayPal’s embracing of cryptocurrency as a means of conducting international transactions led to an increase in the value of Bitcoin, whilst Mastercard partnered with cryptocurrency rewards card provider Gemini.
Last month, Bakkt partnered with NASDAQ-listed Cantaloupe, a digital payments and software services company, with the objective of developing a cashless experience for consumers to spend digital assets at unattended retail devices.
The partnership enabled Cantaloupe to offer its customers the ability to pay using Bakkt’s digital assets, starting with Bitcoin and participating loyalty points.