Bitcoin Futures Exchange Bakkt Hires PayPal, Google Vet as Product Chief

Bitcoin futures exchange Bakkt has hired a PayPal and Google veteran as its new chief product officer.

The firm announced Thursday that it had hired Mike Blandina, who at various points in his career served as head of payments and credit engineering at PayPal and director of engineering for Google Wallet.

Most recently, Blandina was chief technology officer and head of product and engineering at OneMarket, Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler wrote in a blog post.

"As our CPO, Mike will lead our efforts to converge a trusted ecosystem for digital assets with payments use cases, two elements of Bakkt that help bring real world applications to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies," she wrote.

As to the firm itself, Loeffler acknowledged that Bakkt is currently in a state of limbo as it awaits regulatory approval to launch, but likened the firm's development to a marathon.

Bakkt still has no official launch date after multiple delays, though Loeffler hinted that the exchange might provide more clarity soon, writing "Race day is approaching."

"There is more work to be done," she said.

The firm is currently waiting on approval from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to list its bitcoin futures contract.

Bakkt's proposal would have it warehouse its own bitcoin, which may be a factor in this delayed approval.

"We are mindful that the infrastructure we are building has the potential to create more opportunities for digital assets to grow in relevance and trust - by being more secure, investible and useful."