NEW YORK, May 19, 2026, 09:03 EDT
Bakkt, Inc. shares jumped before the New York open Tuesday after a U.S. insider-ownership filing said director Michael Alfred’s investment vehicle picked up about $4.85 million worth of stock.
Bakkt is shifting focus to stablecoin payments and wants to keep investors interested as it does. The jump came before the regular NYSE trading day, which opens at 9:30 a.m. ET, during pre-market hours when trading is thinner.
Bakkt traded at $9.96 before the bell, gaining 14.2% at 09:03 EDT, after it ended Monday at $8.72, up 5.3%. The shares have moved between $6.87 and $49.79 in the past 52 weeks, showing they are still well below last year’s highs even with the latest jump.
Alfred picked up 365,000 shares on May 15 for a weighted average of $8.34, then added another 220,000 shares on May 18 at $8.20, according to a Form 4 filing with the SEC. The buys went through Alpine Fox LP. After the trades, Alfred held 625,000 shares in the vehicle, the document showed.
CEO Akshay Naheta exercised options for 33,557 shares at $10 each on May 15, according to a separate Form 4. His direct Class A common shares now total 9,093,522. This was an option exercise, not bought on the open market.
Bakkt’s insider filings came a week after the company posted first-quarter revenue of $243.6 million, off from $1.07 billion a year ago. Net loss attributable to Bakkt was $11.7 million, compared with net income of $7.7 million. Adjusted EBITDA showed a $13.7 million loss, removing interest, taxes, depreciation and other items.
Naheta called the quarter the “beginning of a new chapter” and said “the platform is built.” The company is leaning on Bakkt Markets, Bakkt Agent and Bakkt Global here. As of March 31, Bakkt reported $82.6 million in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash, with no long-term debt. Bakkt
Bakkt’s strategic reset follows its April 30 buyout of Distributed Technologies Research, or DTR, which builds stablecoin and agentic payments infrastructure. Bakkt said it issued 11.3 million Class A shares to close the all-stock deal, and as many as 725,592 more shares could go out if linked warrants are exercised. Naheta said the way money moves is changing.
Wall Street is still divided, caught between optimism over Bakkt’s strategic shift and worries about past results. Benchmark lowered its price target on Bakkt to $19 from $22 but kept its Buy rating after the latest quarter, Investing.com reported. The firm cited Bakkt’s ongoing pivot in digital assets.
Coinbase isn’t alone. The company lets users buy, sell, transfer and store crypto. PayPal is touting its PYUSD stablecoin for both merchant payments and cross-border use. Both Coinbase and PayPal can reach more users than Bakkt, which is still focused on pitching institutions regulated crypto and payments rails.
Bakkt listed supply and execution as key risks. The company filed an S-3 registration statement, allowing selling stockholders to resell up to 21.0 million Class A shares. Bakkt said it gets no proceeds from these resales and warned that big sales, or even rumors of them, might hit the stock.
Tuesday could be a key day for the stock. Insider buys have come in, but the market still needs proof this loss-making crypto platform can turn its stablecoin shift into steady revenue.
