Bullish Crypto Exchange Shatters Expectations: $990M IPO Lures BlackRock & ARK—Wall Street Wakes Up
Wall Street's sleeping giants finally smell the coffee.
Bullish, the crypto exchange that had institutional skeptics rolling their eyes just months ago, just upsized its IPO to a staggering $990 million—and somehow convinced both BlackRock's risk-averse suits and ARK's tech-obsessed traders to buy in. Guess even traditional finance can't ignore the math anymore.
The details you need:
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The haul
: That $990M figure isn't some speculative crypto hype number—it's cold, hard SEC-filed capitalization. The kind that makes hedge fund managers suddenly 'reassess their digital asset exposure'.
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The players
: BlackRock's involvement reads like a PR stunt (remember when they called Bitcoin 'an index of money laundering' in 2022?). Meanwhile, ARK’s participation proves Cathie Wood still bets on anything with a blockchain—even if profitability remains… theoretical.
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The punchline
: All this happens while retail traders get nickel-and-dimed on commission fees. Some things never change.
One thing's clear: When the whales move, the market follows. Whether that's genius or groupthink? Your portfolio will decide.
Bullish, a global digital asset platform focused on institutional clients, just revealed that it has upsized its IPO to $990 million from $629 million. The Coindesk owner is now set to offer 30 million shares at $32 to $33 each, up from their earlier plan to sell 20.3 million shares at $28 to $31 each, as per a recent SEC filing.
Bullish’s IPO Valuation
At the top of its price range, Bullish WOULD be worth about $4.82B, up from $4.2B, with 146.2M shares after the IPO. BlackRock and Cathie Wood’s ARK have also shown interest in buying up to $200M of the shares.
Bullish is also giving underwriters a 30-day window to buy up to 4.5 million extra shares at the IPO price, after fees. The company is set to debut on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker BLSH, and intends to use the IPO funds for general business needs and possible future acquisitions.
Top Banks Lead the Deal
JPMorgan and Jefferies are leading the IPO, with Citigroup acting as joint manager. Other lead managers include Cantor Fitzgerald, Deutsche Bank, and Société Générale. Co-managers are Canaccord, KBW, Stifel, Oppenheimer, and Rosenblatt, making for a strong group of financial institutions backing the deal.
Bullish’s $3B Asset Base and Stablecoin Plans
Notably, Bullish holds over $3 billion in liquid assets, including 24,000 bitcoin, 12,600 ether, and $418 million in cash and stablecoins, with limited exposure to DeFi. It also plans to convert part of its IPO proceeds into U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins, working with one or more issuers, according to its filing.
Bullish runs a digital asset platform for institutional clients across 50+ countries, excluding the US. In November 2023, it expanded into crypto media by buying CoinDesk from Digital Currency Group for $72.6 million.
Crypto IPOs Surge
With growing backing from the TRUMP administration, more crypto firms are making moves to enter public markets through IPOs, reflecting a rising trend in the industry. This trend picked up steam after Circle Internet Group’s $1.2 billion IPO in June sent its stock soaring, inspiring others to follow suit.
Bullish aimed to go public via a SPAC merger in 2021, targeting a valuation of nearly $9 billion, but dropped it in 2022. Other major crypto players like BitGo and Grayscale have filed for IPOs, while exchanges such as Kraken and OKX are considering going public.
