Beleaguered Bakkt replaces CEO days after NYSE warns of delisting

Companies • March 18, 2024, 5:45PM EDT

Published 1 minute earlier on

Quick Take

Andy Main has been named as the new CEO of Bakkt.
Gavin Michael will be stepping down on March 26 but will continue in an advisory role.
A week ago, the company was warned the NYSE could delist it.

Bakkt, the once-promising darling of traditional finance entering the crypto world, has yet again a new CEO. Board member Andy Main, who was briefly CEO of the advertising agency Ogilvy and held senior positions at Deloitte Digital, will helm Bakkt starting March 26.

Current CEO Gavin Michael, who has been in the job for a little more than three years, "is stepping down to pursue other opportunities," the company said in a press release. Bakkt added that Michael "will serve in an advisory role through March 2025" to help with the transition.

Main, who joined the board of directors in October 2021, will be the company's fifth CEO since it was founded nearly six years ago. The bitcoin platform, owned mostly by the New York Stock Exchange's parent company, the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), was alerted last week that it could be delisted for having its stock price trading below $1 for 30 days. Several weeks ago, Michael had warned the company would have trouble continuing as a going concern, though it has since raised $50 million, with Main saying that the funding “alleviated the conditions that raise the doubt about us as a going concern," according to Bloomberg.

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About Author

Lawrence Lewitinn is the Managing Editor for North America at The Block. Lewitinn brings extensive experience as a financial journalist, with stints at CoinDesk, CNBC, TheStreet, Yahoo Finance, the Observer, and Modern Consensus. His career also includes years on Wall Street, where he traded fixed income, currencies, and commodities for Millennium Management and MQS Capital. Lewitinn is an alumnus of New York University and has earned an MBA from Columbia Business School, along with a Master of International Affairs from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. He is a CFA Charterholder.