TL;DR
- Bullish debuted on the NYSE; shares opened at $90 after setting the IPO at $37, the placement was increased to 30M shares and the company raised $1.1B.
- The offering ended up more than twenty times oversubscribed; Brendan Blumer will control 30.1% and Kokuei Yuan 26.7%, with interest from BlackRock and ARK for $200M.
- Bullish offers spot, margin and derivatives trading for institutional investors; those margin and derivatives products are not available in the U.S.
Bullish debuted on the New York Stock Exchange with a jump that exceeded 140% over the IPO price. Shares opened at $90 after the offering was set at $37 and strong demand forced the placement to be increased to 30 million shares from 20.3 million. The company raised $1.1B and market capitalization at the open reached $13.2B, according to filing data.
The offering proved more than twenty times oversubscribed. Among the largest shareholders are Brendan Blumer, who will hold 30.1% of the shares, and Kokuei Yuan, with 26.7%. Sources familiar with the deal say BlackRock and ARK Investment Management showed interest in buying up to $200M in shares at the IPO price. The deal was coordinated by JPMorgan Chase, Jefferies and Citigroup, and the shares trade under the ticker BLSH.
Bullish provides spot trading and offers margin and derivatives services aimed at institutional investors; those margin and derivatives products are not available to users in the United States. The company also supplies liquidity to stablecoin issuers, a role that could gain traction after recent U.S. stablecoin legislation. In 2023 the firm acquired CoinDesk for $72.6M, adding market data and indexes to its business.
Bullish’s IPO Is an Astronomical Success Despite Q1 Losses
Several firms in the industry are choosing to go public following regulatory changes and increased institutional interest. Bullish previously considered a SPAC merger in 2021 that would have valued the firm at $9B, but it canceled that plan in 2022. SEC filings show that in Q1 2025 the company reported a net loss of $348.6M on revenues of $80.2M, compared with net income of $104.8M in the same period a year earlier.
Block.one reduced its stake below 50% in July 2024. Strong demand for the IPO and the entry of institutional investors place Bullish in a position of high liquidity and public visibility, despite the recent operating losses
