Bullish is run by Tom Farley, a former president of the New York Stock Exchange, and in August 2025 he listed his crypto company there. Bullish built a crypto trading venue for banks, funds and other big players. It also owned CoinDesk, whose crypto price indexes serve as benchmarks for more than $30 billion in assets. Its first try at going public, through a SPAC, had fallen apart in 2022.

Exchange First, News Second

Bullish set out to be a regulated crypto exchange with deep, steady markets for large traders. Spot trading in bitcoin and other major coins was its core business, and it added perpetual futures in late 2023. In 2023 it also bought CoinDesk, the crypto news site, along with its indexes and data business. The bet was that institutions would only trade crypto at scale on a venue that looked and acted like a traditional exchange.

Thirty-Seven Dollars on BLSH

Bullish priced its IPO at $37 a share in August 2025, above its range, and sold 30 million shares, raising about $1.1 billion. BlackRock and ARK funds had signaled interest in buying up to $200 million of the stock. The shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange as BLSH on August 13 and jumped in their debut. Bullish still trades on the NYSE.

Cover: The Bull, Franz Marc. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a bull (Bullish).