Bakkt’s $3 Billion Volume Goal Puts Its Payments Pivot to the Test

Bakkt’s roughly $3 billion 2026 transaction-volume goal implies about $2.59 billion in second-half activity after the company processed $410 million in the first six months.

On Sept. 9, Bakkt raised its target for total transacting volume (TTV) to approximately $3 billion from approximately $2.5 billion, a 20% increase. Customer demand exceeded Bakkt’s initial assumptions, its pipeline grew larger and more advanced, and its commercial organization expanded. The target assumes customer integrations and activations stay on schedule and pipeline relationships become active during the second half. Several of the company’s largest opportunities remained in early activation and had not yet added meaningful volume as of Sept. 9.

TTV measures the aggregate notional value of transactions processed through Bakkt’s platforms. It is an operating measure, not a forecast of revenue or profit. Notional value describes the full amount moved, so transaction volume does not mean Bakkt earns that same amount.

For payment activity, Bakkt earns fees and spreads rather than the amount transferred. The company has not issued 2027 financial or TTV guidance. It is developing products for recurring transaction flows in energy, metals and agriculture.

Second-quarter TTV was $168.8 million. The implied second-half requirement is more than six times the volume processed from January through June.

Bakkt completed the sale of its loyalty business Oct. 1, 2025, then acquired Distributed Technologies Research (DTR) on April 30, 2026. It began counting payments activity from DTR’s acquired infrastructure in TTV on May 1.

Before the acquisition, DTR was owned by Bakkt CEO Akshay Naheta. Bakkt issued 11,316,775 shares to DTR holders at closing. An independent special committee reviewed the transaction, and Naheta recused himself from the board’s consideration and vote.

On Oct. 13, Thredd announced a planned U.S. credit-card-as-a-service program with Bakkt designed to settle in stablecoins. Thredd will provide card processing and credit infrastructure for credit products issued by partner banks. The program also includes tokenization, digital-wallet integration, fraud and risk management, and loyalty services. An initial proof of concept is targeted for the first half of 2027, subject to product readiness, client launch timing, bank and network requirements, and applicable approvals.