Will the Bakkt launch help bitcoin go mainstream?

On September 22, a product designed to remake Bitcoin as a mainstream investment for the world’s investment managers will go live. When ICE Futures U.S., one of the world’s largest commodities markets, opens trading at 8 p.m. ET that day, it will offer Bakkt Daily and Monthly Bitcoin Futures, the first physically delivered crypto-currency futures contracts ever traded on a federally regulated exchange.

If the exchange works as planned, it will give institutional investors a secure, well-monitored place to trade Bitcoin, the world’s most widely used cryptocurrency. That in turn could help alleviate the problems with volatility and trustworthiness that have kept Bitcoin from being more widely adopted—giving the asset a major boost in legitimacy.