Crypto Stock Bullish Is Set to Go Public. Can It Live Up to Its Name? — Barrons.com

Paul R. La Monica

With Bitcoin prices hovering near a record high of about $120,000, and shares of newly public stablecoin company Circle Internet Group rallying after reporting strong earnings, it looks like this is a great time to be bullish on cryptocurrencies. And one crypto exchange, appropriately named Bullish, is about to test the market's appetite for both Bitcoin and initial public offerings.

Shares of Bullish, which also owns the crypto news and data site CoinDesk, are set to begin trading later this week under the ticker symbol of BLSH on the New York Stock Exchange.

Demand seems to be robust for the IPO. On Monday, the company said in a regulatory filing that it now plans to sell 30 million shares priced from $32 to $33, up from an original IPO proposal to sell 20.3 million shares priced from $28 to $31. At a price of $33, and with 150.7 million shares outstanding, Bullish would have a market value of $5 billion.

Bullish also has a well-known executive in the C-suite, and an impressive list of backers and potential investors. Tom Farley, a former president of Intercontinental Exchange who was in charge of the New York Stock Exchange, is Bullish's CEO, and is set to add the chairman title after the close of the IPO.

Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and Thiel Capital were early investors in Block.one, the blockchain software company that helped launch Bullish in 2021. Galaxy Digital, another prominent crypto firm, has a stake in Bullish, as well. Bullish has also said that iShares owner BlackRock and Cathie Wood's ARK Investment Management expressed interest in buying up to a combined $200 million of shares at the IPO price.

Bullish reported a loss in the first quarter of 2025 after posting a profit in the same period a year ago. But the company also said in its most recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it expects to earn $106.1 million to $109.1 million in the second quarter of this year.

And if crypto prices continue to rise, that bodes well for Bullish, too. The company, like many firms, also has invested in cryptocurrencies as part of its corporate treasury strategy. Bullish holds about $2 billion in crypto on its balance sheet. The bulk of that is in Bitcoin, but the company also has a small position in Ethereum, as well as some stablecoins.

One analyst who issued a report on Bullish before its IPO noted that the company's focus on Bitcoin and Ethereum could make it a less-risky stock than other crypto exchanges, such as Coinbase Global, which tend to have a larger focus on individual traders who are willing to bet on smaller coins.

"Bullish's institutional focus provides more-consistent performance than retail trading platforms," said Ed Engel, an analyst with Compass Point Research & Trading, in a report. "Retail traders typically over index to Altcoins, particularly during bull markets."

Engel noted that trading activity for other cryptos tends to be more volatile than for Bitcoin and Ethereum. Of course, anything with big ties to crypto is inherently risky. But investors may have more good reasons to be bullish about Bullish for the long haul.

Write to Paul R. La Monica at paul.lamonica@barrons.com

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