New York grants Bakkt coveted BitLicense

Bakkt has become the latest crypto firm to get a BitLicense.

On Thursday, the New York Department of Financial Services announced that Bakkt had become the 29th BitLicensee.

First granted to Paxos in 2015, the BitLicense is New York's program for regulating digital currency firms. With it, Bakkt will have new access to offer crypto trading in the financial center of the U.S.

The NYDFS also took the opportunity to plug its other crypto initiatives, including a tech sprint that aims to find new ways of getting data from firms to regulators in real time. 

While New York's regulation has a reputation for hawkishness, Manhattan's status as a financial center continues to make access to the jurisdiction extremely attractive to businesses looking to engage in all sorts of trading activities. When PayPal was looking to get into crypto, the firm waited for New York's first conditional BitLicense before making its plans public.