Crypto custody firm Bakkt faces delisting if shares stay under $1

Bakkt has posted back-to-back losses and a plummeting share price since listing in October 2021 and the NYSE is threatening to pull it.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has threatened to delist crypto custody and trading platform Bakkt if it doesnt get its average closing share price back above $1.

In a March 13 press release, Bakkt said the NYSE notified it that it was not in compliance with the stock exchanges listing rules as over the past 30-day trading period, its share price closed below $1 on average.

Bakkt closed trading on March 13 at 60 cents, up 2.8% on the day but has fallen nearly 42% over the month from above $1. It once traded at a high of over $40 in late October 2021, according to Google Finance.

Bakkt last traded above $1 on Feb. 28 before falling sharply the next day. Source: Google Finance

Bakkt said it “intends to cure the stock price deficiency and to return to compliance” with the NYSE standard and will consider — upon shareholder approval — a reverse stock split, where existing shares are combined together with the aim of raising their price.

It has six months to get back on track, and Bakkt explained it can “regain compliance at any time” within that timeframe if it has a $1 share price “on the last trading day of any calendar month within the six-month cure period and an average share price of at least $1 over the 30 trading-day period ending on the last trading day of that month.”

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Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which owns the NYSE, founded Bakkt in 2018 and is the crypto firms majority owner. The crypto firm listed on the NYSE in October 2021.

When it launched, Bakkt touted itself as a platform for institutions to buy, sell, store and spend crypto and once had a retail-facing app — which it shuttered in February 2023 after it never took off amid a sea of competing crypto exchanges.

Bakkt has reported eight back-to-back quarters of net losses since its listing and warned in early February that it might not have enough cash to stay in business for the next 12 months.

The crypto platform received regulatory approval on Feb. 14 to offer $150 million in new shares to try to raise cash.