Bullish
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| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Cryptocurrency |
| Founded | 2020 |
| Founders | Brendan Blumer |
| Headquarters | George Town, Cayman Islands, |
Key people | Thomas W. Farley, Chair & CEO David W. Bonanno, CFO |
| Products | Cryptocurrency exchange |
 −US$785 million (2025) | |
| Total assets |  US$3.956 billion (2025) |
| Total equity | US$3.216 billion (2025) |
| Owner | Brendan Blumer (25.89%) Kokuei Yuan (24.09%) Thomas W. Farley (3.45%) Andrew C. Bliss (3.34%) David W. Bonanno (1.23%) |
Number of employees | 414 (2025) |
| Subsidiaries | CoinDesk |
| Website | bullish |
| Footnotes [1] | |
Bullish is a Caymanian cryptocurrency exchange and blockchain technology company headquartered in George Town, Cayman Islands.[1] The company provides infrastructure and services for the trading of digital assets through the Bullish Exchange platform, which is licensed in Germany, Hong Kong, Gibraltar, and New York State.
History
[edit]Founding and incorporation (2020-2021)
[edit]Bullish was founded in 2020 in Hong Kong by Brendan Blumer, who had previously launched Block.one.[2] It began its operations in May 2021.[2] The company was initially seeded by Block.one with 164,000 Bitcoins valued at around US$9.7 billion, US$100 million in cash, and 20 million EOS.IO tokens. It also raised US$300 million from investors including Peter Thiel, Alan Howard, Louis Bacon, Christian Angermayer, and Richard Li.[3] It launched with Thomas Farley as head of the company.[4] At the time of launch, its offerings were in bitcoin, ether, EOS tokens and USD coins. It was structured as a subsidiary Block.one, with Brendan Blumer serving as chairman.[5]
In early 2021, Bullish was awarded a distributed ledger technology license from the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC).[5] Bullish was incorporated in the Cayman Islands on June 22, 2021.[6] In November 2021, Bullish officially began operating for a first group of institutional investors, such as Virtu Capital and Amber Group. It initially made $3 billion of its assets available via liquidity pool.[5]
IPO and Coindesk (2022-2026)
[edit]In 2021, Bullish announced plans to become a public company through a US$9 billion merger with a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC); however, the deal was canceled in December 2022 after the SPAC was unable to secure the necessary approvals.[2] In December 2022, it was announced the Far Peak SPAC, which had raised $550 million in its IPO and was led by Farley, would wind down by March 7, 2023. At the time, Brendan Blumer was Bullish CEO.[7]
In November 2023, the company acquired CoinDesk for approximately US$75 million.[8]
By March 2024, Bullish had handled US$1.25 trillion in total transactions, with products including spot, margin and derivatives trading. It had sold a significant portion of its seed investment from Block.one, but still held over 24,000 Bitcoin worth at the time around $US1.7 billion. It also held $US144 million in dollar-denominated stablecoins.[9]
In July 2024, Block.one reduced its equity stake to below 50%. Farley was CEO, and owned a stake worth US$437 million.[9]
In August 2025, Bullish became a public company via an initial public offering (IPO), raising US$1.1 billion.[10] At the time of the IPO, co-founder and board member Blumer was the largest shareholder, with a 30.1% stake. Kokuei Yuan, also on the board, owned 26.7% stake worth $2.5 billion. CEO Tom Farley owned a stake worth $355 million, at the time.[11]
In May 2026, Bullish agreed to acquire transfer agent Equiniti from Siris Capital for $4.2 billion, including $1.85 billion of assumed debt and $2.35 billion in Bullish stock.[12][13]
See also
[edit]
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Bullish Form 20-F 2025 Annual Report". United States Securities and Exchange Commission. March 10, 2026.
- ^ a b c Ossinger, Joanna (December 22, 2022). "Thiel-Backed Bullish Scraps Crypto SPAC Deal Set at $9 Billion". Bloomberg News.
- ^ Henning, Eyk (May 12, 2021). "Peter Thiel, Alan Howard, Richard Li invest in new crypto exchange Bullish". Fortune. Bloomberg News.
- ^ Roush, Ty (August 13, 2025). "Crypto Exchange Bullish Surges 160% In IPO, Becomes Latest Wall Street Debut Darling". forbes.com. Retrieved June 9, 2026.
- ^ a b c Olsen, Robert (November 30, 2021). "Crypto Exchange Backed By Peter Thiel And Richard Li Goes Live For Institutional Clients". forbes.com. Retrieved June 9, 2026.
- ^ "Bullish Form F-1". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. July 18, 2025.
- ^ "Crypto firm Bullish, Far Peak call off $9 bln SPAC deal". reuters. December 22, 2022. Retrieved June 9, 2026.
- ^ Schwartz, Leo (February 13, 2024). "Bullish paid close to $75 million to acquire CoinDesk. Here's what we know about the company and its plans for crypto media". Fortune – via Yahoo Finance.
- ^ a b Sloan, Dylan (August 14, 2025). "This 39-year-old just became a billionaire after stunning Wall Street debut". smh.com. Retrieved June 9, 2026.
- ^ Driebusch, Corrie; Huang, Vicky (August 13, 2025). "Bullish's Stock Soars in Latest Test for IPO Market". The Wall Street Journal.
- ^ Sloan, Dylan (August 13, 2025). "Bullish IPO Mints Two Billionaires at Thiel-Backed Crypto Firm". Bloomberg. Retrieved June 9, 2026.
- ^ Huang, Vicky Ge (May 5, 2026). "Crypto Exchange Bullish Strikes $4.2 Billion Deal for Transfer Agent in Tokenization Push". The Wall Street Journal.
- ^ "Crypto exchange Bullish to buy Equiniti for $4.2 billion in capital markets push". CNBC. Reuters. May 5, 2026.
External links
[edit]- Business data for Bullish:
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