Clear Street initiated coverage of Bakkt with a buy rating and a $14 price target, saying that implies roughly 44% upside after a steep year-to-date decline. The broker noted Bakkt’s shares have fallen more than 60% this year even as the S&P 500 gained, leaving the stock priced for a slow recovery.
The firm describes Bakkt’s repositioning as a move to become a blockchain-native payments platform. Management has sold non-core units, including Loyalty and Custody, and now centers the business on two pillars: institutional Crypto Services and the company’s Digital Transfer and Remittance platform, DTR, which is building stablecoin payment rails. Bakkt currently trades at about 2.9x projected 2027 EV/EBITDA, the report said.
Clear Street models a 14% annual revenue CAGR through 2027 driven by DTR scale. The broker expects stablecoin transactions to generate nearly double the margin of Bakkt’s crypto services, pushing gross profit to grow about 66% annually. Adjusted EBITDA is forecast to turn positive in early 2026 and reach $49 million in 2027, aided by a targeted $60 million cost reset.
DTR rollout is central to the growth thesis: the platform is scheduled to launch in 36 countries by late 2025 and expand to 90-plus in 2026, with transaction volumes projected to reach $2.6 billion by 2027. Bakkt’s BitLicense and more than 50 state money-transmitter licenses give it a deep U.S. compliance footprint, which Clear Street says could speed partner adoption among remittance firms and neobanks.
Why readers should care: if Bakkt executes, it could capture share of the large cross-border payments market and re-rate closer to peers. But investors should weigh execution and regulatory risks, competition in stablecoin rails, and the uncertainty in revenue forecasts — broker targets are not guarantees.
Rival broker Benchmark also initiated coverage this week with a buy rating and a $13 target. Source: CoinDesk. Read the original coverage for full details.