A Coinbase veteran is changing sides in the cryptocurrency wars

A prime architect of America’s largest trading platform for digital currencies is changing teams. Adam White, who helped build Coinbase into a crypto-colossus with 25 million customers, is joining Bakkt, the venture launched in August by a consortium led by Intercontinental Exchange (market cap: $42 billion), parent of the New York Stock Exchange, as chief operating officer.

Bakkt, with its deep ties to Wall Street’s institutional investing titans, is pitching itself as the venture with an inside track at bringing Bitcoin mutual funds and ETFs to America’s 401(k)s.

The announcement came on the morning of October 15 via a post on the blogging platform Medium from Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler. For sixteen years, Loeffler worked alongside ICE’s founder and chief Jeff Sprecher, who’s also her husband, to assemble a highly regulated, mainstream trading empire for equities, ETFs, and commodities ranging from Brent crude to cotton. The ICE exchanges are go-to venues for Wall Street. (For more, read “The NYSE’s Owner Is Launching a Startup Exchange for Bitcoin.”)