Bullish, the crypto exchange that emerged from Block.one’s $10 billion treasure chest in 2021, is charging toward a nearly $1 billion IPO—because apparently owning CoinDesk and operating with licenses across Germany, Hong Kong, and Gibraltar wasn’t quite enough to satisfy its ambitions.
The company plans to raise approximately $990 million at a $4.8 billion valuation through the sale of 30 million shares, positioning itself among 2025’s largest crypto-related public offerings. This isn’t some garage startup throwing digital coins at the wall; Bullish has assembled a roster of backers that reads like a who’s who of institutional finance, including Peter Thiel, BlackRock, Ark Invest, and Japanese banking giant Nomura.
The timing appears calculated to capitalize on Wall Street’s renewed crypto infatuation. Circle’s post-IPO stock appreciation exceeded 500%, suggesting investors maintain an almost unseemly appetite for regulated digital asset infrastructure. Meanwhile, Kraken and Grayscale are queuing up their own public debuts, creating what market observers might generously call “momentum” (or less charitably, a feeding frenzy).
Bullish’s strategic positioning extends beyond mere opportunism. Its multi-jurisdictional licensing framework provides institutional investors with that increasingly precious commodity: regulatory comfort. The company’s ownership of CoinDesk’s media and analytics apparatus adds another layer of market influence—a vertical integration strategy that would make traditional media moguls envious.
The IPO proceeds will fund the usual corporate growth playbook: market expansion, strategic acquisitions of distressed competitors, and operational scaling. Public status also transforms shares into acquisition currency, potentially accelerating consolidation in an increasingly crowded exchange landscape.
What distinguishes this offering is its cross-border licensing strategy, enabling access to both Western institutional capital and Asian liquidity pools—a geographic arbitrage play that competitors with single-jurisdiction focus cannot easily replicate.
The nearly $1 billion raise reflects institutional recognition that crypto infrastructure has evolved beyond speculative trading platforms into legitimate financial market infrastructure. This surge in institutional confidence mirrors the momentum behind Bitcoin ETFs, which achieved record-breaking performance with $620.54 billion in net inflows during early 2025, fundamentally recalibrating how traditional finance views digital assets.
Whether Bullish can justify its $4.8 billion valuation remains an open question, but the company’s regulatory positioning and institutional backing suggest Wall Street believes crypto exchanges have graduated from curiosity to necessity.
