Author: Nancy, PANews
Another crypto institution is targeting the US capital market. Recently, Bullish, the cryptocurrency trading platform under Block.one, has restarted its IPO plan after failing to list several years ago. With the US regulatory environment becoming increasingly clear and institutional capital pouring in, Bullish, backed by substantial early Bitcoin reserves and strong traditional capital support, is once again making a push into the capital market, though it still faces challenges such as revenue pressure and high customer concentration.
Compliance and capital backing, three years to restart the listing plan
On July 18, Bullish submitted its IPO documents to the US SEC, planning to list on the New York Stock Exchange with the stock code set as "BLSH," while the specific number of shares and price range have yet to be determined. This IPO is being underwritten by several top investment banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Jefferies Financial Group, Citigroup, Cantor Fitzgerald LP, Deutsche Bank, and Société Générale. The SEC has granted underwriters the option to purchase additional shares within 30 days.
"We are now planning to go public because we believe the digital asset industry is at the starting point of its next growth phase. We believe transparency and compliance are core values of Bullish's operations, which align closely with the public capital markets. We also believe that becoming a publicly listed company will bring critical advantages to our business: enhancing credibility with partners, counterparties, and regulators; obtaining more capital channels; and having equity currency for strategic acquisitions." Farley pointed out that the digital asset industry is at a turning point where institutional investors are accelerating their entry, and Bullish is well-equipped with sufficient resources and a compliance model to meet this wave of institutionalization.
In fact, this is not Bullish's first attempt to enter the capital market. As early as 2021, just two months after its establishment, Bullish announced its intention to go public through a merger with Far Peak Acquisition Corp., with a valuation of up to $9 billion and an intended issuance price of $10 per share.
At that time, Bullish also raised about $900 million through PIPE financing (Private Investment in Public Equity), of which Far Peak contributed $600 million, while the remaining $300 million came from heavyweight traditional and crypto capital, including Thiel Capital and Founders Fund under PayPal's former CEO Peter Thiel, Nomura Holdings, Louis Bacon, and Galaxy Digital.
The reason Bullish attained a high valuation at that time was due to the substantial asset support it received from Block.one, including an investment of $100 million in cash, as well as 164,000 Bitcoins (then valued at about $9.7 billion) and 20 million EOS tokens. However, due to the drastic changes in the global financial environment in the second half of 2022, global market risk appetite plummeted, leading crypto assets into a bear market cycle, and Bullish ultimately terminated its SPAC plan in the second half of 2022.
This restart of the IPO is Bullish's keen response to changes in the market environment and strategic adjustment. On one hand, the US market regulation is gradually becoming clearer, and many crypto institutions are competing to advance their listing processes, especially the successful case of Circle that saw a substantial rise post-IPO, further boosting market confidence; on the other hand, traditional financial institutions are entering the digital asset space on a large scale, with Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs continuously attracting capital, leading to a wave of listed companies hoarding coins, accelerating the compliance and institutionalization trend in the crypto industry. Bullish is gradually completing its global compliance layout, having established subsidiaries in places like the Cayman Islands, the US, Singapore, Gibraltar, Germany, and Hong Kong, including obtaining a virtual asset trading platform license from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) earlier this year;
Additionally, Bullish has also received heavyweight traditional capital support, such as key shareholder Peter Thiel, who is not only one of the most influential investors in Silicon Valley but whose Founders Fund and Thiel Capital are also among Bullish's earliest and most steadfast investors; while CEO Tom Farley himself possesses rich capital market experience, having been involved in multiple listed projects as the president of the New York Stock Exchange and having served as an independent market for full platform projects.
Massive losses cannot hinder strong reserves, with management holding over 60%
As the parent company of EOS, Block.one raised an astonishing amount of $4.2 billion through its ICO, and it remains one of the private companies with the largest amount of Bitcoin to this day. However, EOS has long parted ways with Block.one, officially renamed Vaulta, and announced its transformation into a Web3 bank. Block.one, on the other hand, focuses on building a compliant cryptocurrency exchange, with Bullish's main business divided between the Bullish exchange and the cryptocurrency media CoinDesk.
Among them, CoinDesk was acquired by Bullish in November 2023 from Digital Currency Group (DCG), indirectly gaining over 6 million users, and subsequently launched products such as CoinDesk Indices, CoinDesk Data, and CoinDesk Insights, with revenue mainly coming from advertising, sponsorships, event ticket sales, and data subscriptions.
According to the latest submitted IPO documents, as of March 31, 2025, Bullish Exchange's cumulative trading volume has exceeded $1.25 trillion, with spot trading being a key business, achieving an average daily trading volume of $1.498 billion in 2024. In the first quarter of this year, Bullish's spot trading volumes for BTC and ETH reached $108.6 billion and $52.3 billion, respectively, growing by 36% and 43% compared to the same period last year, claiming to be among the top ten mainstream digital currency trading platforms globally.
However, the document also pointed out that there is a significant customer concentration risk in Bullish's core business segments, with a high reliance on large clients (institutional market makers, institutional arbitrage traders, and high-frequency traders), where the top five clients account for 69% of spot trading volume and 83% of trading revenue.
Moreover, from the profit data, Bullish's financial performance in recent years has shown significant volatility. Documents indicate that Bullish suffered a net loss of as much as $4.246 billion in 2022, achieving only $79.56 million in net profit by 2024, and in Q1 of this year, a net loss of $348 million was reported, contrasting sharply with the net income of $105 million in the same period last year.
Despite pressure on performance, Bullish still maintains ample liquidity. According to the prospectus, as of March 31, 2025, Bullish holds liquid assets valued at over $1.962 billion, including $1.735 billion in Bitcoin, $144 million in stablecoins, $28 million in cash, $22 million in Ethereum, and $33 million in other digital assets. Notably, the amount of Bitcoin held by Bullish has significantly decreased from about 66,720 at the end of 2022 to about 20,960 as of March 31, 2025, a reduction of more than two-thirds, with the current primary uses being intangible assets, lending, and other receivables and investment funds. Total liabilities are about $700 million, including customer deposits, cryptocurrency asset liabilities, financing leases, and deferred taxes.
In terms of equity structure, Bullish's control is highly concentrated in the hands of the management team, with several senior executives holding more than 60% of Class A common stock and the vast majority of equity, including Block.one CEO Brendan Blumer holding 36.3% of Class A shares and 35.5% of equity; Thomas holding over 10.29 million shares; CFO David W. Bonannoei holding over 36.77 million shares; and Yuan holding 32.2% of Class A shares and 31.4% equity. Among external institutional shareholders holding over 5%, key shareholders include: Pu Luo Chung VC Private Ltd. with 12.6% post-IPO equity; Alexander See holding 8.5% equity; PLC (Bullish Global) Ltd. with 1.3% equity; and Galaxy Digital Ventures with 1.1% equity.
Overall, leveraging the opening of regulatory windows and the warming of capital markets, Bullish is attempting to seize a passport to enter the mainstream market. However, whether Bullish can truly establish a foothold in the capital market remains a significant challenge in the future.
(The above content is an excerpt and reprint authorized by partner PANews, with the original link)
"Bullish makes another attempt at IPO: With 20,000 Bitcoins in hand, Silicon Valley investment tycoon Peter Thiel leads the charge" was first published by (Blockkey).
