Bullish IPO: Binance and Coinbase competitor shares begin trading

Preliminary trading in shares of the American crypto exchange Bullish, which is managed by the former president of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Thomas Farley, began in the trading system for Freedom clients. The company's securities under the ticker BLSH will appear on the NYSE later on Wednesday.

Bullish raised $1.1 billion on the New York Stock Exchange by offering 30 million shares of common stock at $37 per paper - 12% above the upper limit of the previously announced price range, and already increased compared to the original. In addition, the cryptocurrency exchange gave the underwriters of the IPO 30-day option to buy up to 4.5 million more shares at the offering price. Based on the IPO price, the market value of Bullish can be estimated at $5.4 billion, Bloomberg noted.

"A hot market for crypto firms," as Bullish-owned news site CoinDesk puts it, previously allowed the cryptocurrency exchange to increase the number of shares offered from 20.3 million to 30 million and raise the IPO price range from $28-31 to $32-33 per security. According to Bloomberg, investor demand for Bullish shares during the bookbuild far exceeded the increased offering volume.

Bullish debuts on NYSE under the ticker BLSH. The offering was organized by JPMorgan, Jefferies, Citi, Cantor Fitzgerald, Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale. Funds managed by BlackRock and Cathie Wood's Ark Invest have expressed interest in buying $200 million worth of shares in the crypto exchange at the IPO price, Bullish said in a listing filing.

According to the IPO prospectus, Bullish is founded in 2020. At the same time, the marketing wording on the crypto exchange's website states that it was "born in the Year of the Bull" - in 2021. Bullish was originally created as a subsidiary of Block.one, but quickly received support from major investors, including Founders Fund and Thiel Capital of PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, as well as Nomura and crypto investor Michael Novogratz, AInvest notes.

In 2021, Bullish announced plans to go public by merging with Specialized (SPAC). As a result of the deal, the value of the combined company would have amounted to about $9 billion, but in 2022 the crypto exchange abandoned these plans, recalls Bloomberg.

Bullish is now targeting institutional investors. By April 2025, the total trading volume on the Bullish Exchange platform exceeded $1.25 trillion, with an average daily trading volume of $2.5 billion in the first quarter of 2025. The company claims to be among the top 5 in spot trading volumes for bitcoin and ethereum (Ethereum), competing with industry giants such as Binance, Coinbase and Kraken.

Bullish is looking to capitalize on increased optimism about bitcoin, stablecoins and other digital assets thanks to more favorable regulation of the crypto industry under the Donald Trump administration. Trump's recently signed GENIUS Act, a law that provides greater regulatory certainty for stablecoins such as Circle's USDC and Tether's USDT, has been hailed as a watershed moment for the crypto industry, Barron's notes. Circle held an IPO in June, and its stock price has risen fivefold since then.

Freedom Broker analyst Alem Bektemirov gave a Buy recommendation on Bullish shares. Strong market positions, entry into new regions, expansion of the digital asset market, introduction of traditional financial institutions and increased regulatory transparency will allow the crypto exchange to further increase revenue, Bektemirov said. Taking into account all financial assumptions, the fair valuation of Bullish calculated by the Freedom analyst is $6.4 billion, and the target price of the stock is $44.

"I expect an increase in speculative activity in the crypto space driven by easy-money policies," Needham & Co. senior analyst John Todaro told Bloomberg. John Todaro.

Bullish's focus on bitcoin and Ethereum makes it a less risky investment compared to the securities of crypto exchanges focused on smaller cryptocurrencies, Gurufocus wrote, citing Compass Point analyst Ed Engel.

Investors should be cautious: Bullish ended the first quarter of 2025 with a net loss of $349 million versus a profit a year earlier, Barron's warned. In addition, investors should be aware that the small volume of free float at the IPO could, through scarcity, artificially push the price up on the day of the stock's debut, the publication emphasized.

"For this reason, some experts advise investors to wait until the end of the so-called lockup period, which is usually 180 days after the IPO. After that, many early investors will be allowed to sell their shares, which could lead to market saturation and lower quotes - to the detriment of those who bought securities immediately after [the issuer] went public," Barron's noted.

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Freedom clients will be able to get access to Bullish shares before the opening of the main exchange session. Trading will begin in the early pre-market format 2-3 hours before the opening of the US exchanges (from 15:30-16:30 Astana time). To participate click on ticker BLSH.US

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor