Bakkt Rated Buy With 44% Upside on Stablecoin Growth Potential: Clear Street

What to know:

• Clear Street started coverage on Bakkt with a buy rating and a $14 target, implying more than 40% upside.
• The company has pivoted to blockchain-native payments platform, betting on high-margin stablecoin remittances, the report said.

Clear Street initiated coverage of Bakkt (BKKT) with a buy rating and a $14 price target, implying 44% upside after a steep year-to-date decline, the broker said in a research report Tuesday.

The shares have fallen over 60% this year versus an 11% gain for the S&P 500 stock index. The stock was 0.7% higher, around $9.83, in early trading Wednesday.

Bakkt has shed non-core units like Loyalty and Custody to streamline into a blockchain-native payments platform, trading at just 2.9x projected 2027 EV/EBITDA, the report noted.

Its business now rests on two pillars: Crypto Services for institutions and its Digital Transfer and Remittance (DTR) platform, which builds stablecoin payment infrastructure. With strong regulatory footing, a lean cost structure, and higher-margin stablecoin rails, Bakkt is positioned to capture share in the $190 trillion cross-border payments market, analysts led by Brian Dobson wrote.

Clear Street projects 14% annual revenue growth through 2027, with DTR driving both scale and profitability.

The broker noted that stablecoin transactions offer nearly double the margin of crypto services, pushing gross profit growth at 66% annually. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to turn positive by early 2026 and hit $49 million in 2027, supported by a $60 million cost reset.

DTR is slated to launch in 36 countries by late 2025 and expand to 90-plus in 2026, with transaction volume forecast to reach $2.6 billion by 2027, the analysts wrote.

Bakkt’s institutional-first model avoids reliance on retail crypto adoption, targeting regulated partners like remittance firms and neobanks, the broker said, and Its BitLicense and 50-plus state money transmitter licenses provide one of the strongest compliance frameworks in the U.S., enabling rapid scaling.