Bakkt stock climbs 14%, perhaps on retail investor interest, bitcoin rise

Bakkt (NYSE:BKKT), the digital asset exchange, jumps 14% in premarket, as some retail investors on social media emphasize the company was once led by Kelly Loeffler, who's now a former U.S. senator and flag it as a short squeeze candidate. Recall that Loeffler, who lost her Senate seat in January, was backed by President Trump. In its filing dated Sept. 17, Loeffler wasn't named in the company's ownership structure. In addition, PYMNTS.com published an article earlier on Monday highlighting the digital asset network's plan to increase its user base to 32M in five years from 100K active users at the beginning of this year, citing an interview with Bakkt (BKKT) CEO Gavin Michael. Bitcoin's (BTC-USD) increase may also be contributing to Baakt's (BKKT) rise, recently trading at $62.6K, up 3.4% in the past 24 hours. The digital asset marketplace, which was majority-owned by Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE), started publicly trading on Oct. 18 when it combined