Bullish Global priced 2.1 million shares at $14.50 each Tuesday night, above the $12-to-$14 range marketed to institutional investors, raising $150 million in gross proceeds. Shares opened at $17.80 Wednesday morning on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker BULL, climbing 28% from the IPO price by midday before settling near $18.50. The exchange, founded by former NYSE president Tom Farley and backed by blockchain software firm Block.one, becomes the first pure-play crypto spot exchange to list on a major U.S. venue since Coinbase's direct listing in April 2021.
The offering drew $680 million in indications of interest from 47 institutional accounts, according to placement documents reviewed by allocators. Lead underwriters Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan allocated 73% of shares to long-only funds, 18% to hedge funds, and 9% to family offices, a distribution skew that mirrors pre-IPO conversations in which Farley emphasized Bullish's $440 million in Bitcoin and USDC reserves—enough to cover 112% of customer liabilities under the company's disclosed accounting. The exchange reported $89 million in net revenue for the twelve months ending September 2024, with $31 million in adjusted EBITDA, driven primarily by maker-taker fees on $28 billion in annual spot volume.
The timing matters. Bullish filed its S-1 in October 2024, two months after the SEC approved spot Bitcoin ETFs and six weeks before the agency issued no-action relief for qualified custodians holding digital assets in segregated wallets. That regulatory clarity, combined with Bitcoin's sustained trade above $90,000 since November, created a narrow window for crypto infrastructure companies to access public capital without the compliance overhang that plagued Coinbase's $86 billion opening valuation. Bullish's $1.2 billion post-money valuation at $14.50 implies a 13.5x revenue multiple, compared to Coinbase's current 8.2x and Kraken's last private-round 11x in early 2022. The premium reflects Bullish's balance-sheet structure: the company holds 9,200 Bitcoin and $180 million in stablecoins as equity capital, not customer deposits, which insulates it from the liquidity-mismatch risk that triggered FTX's collapse.
Allocators should track three follow-on events. First, the 180-day lockup on 68 million founder and employee shares expires in mid-July 2025, representing 89% of post-IPO float—a supply event that will test whether institutional buyers remain committed at these multiples. Second, Bullish's application for a Bermuda Digital Asset Business license, filed in December, is expected to clear by March, which would allow the exchange to custody institutional assets under a regime recognized by U.S. banking regulators for corresponding-account purposes. Third, the company disclosed in its prospectus that it is in "advanced discussions" with two U.S. state-chartered trust companies to establish onshore fiat rails, a capability Coinbase deployed in 2019 that drove $1.4 billion in incremental revenue over the subsequent 18 months. Those partnerships, if announced in the next 90 days, would give Bullish direct ACH access and eliminate its current reliance on Silvergate's successor correspondent banks.
The $18.50 close Wednesday leaves Bullish valued at $1.45 billion, or 16.3x trailing revenue, a multiple sustainable only if Bitcoin remains rangebound or higher and the company deploys its $150 million in new capital into the fiat-onramp infrastructure that institutions require for size.
The takeaway
Bullish's $150M raise and 28% pop signal appetite for crypto infrastructure plays with on-balance-sheet reserves and clear custody models.
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