Shares of Crypto Exchange Bullish Leap 83% in Market Debut

Shares of cryptocurrency exchange Bullish reportedly ended the day of their initial public offering (IPO) 83% higher than the company’s target price.

Bullish shares were priced at $37, leapt as high as $118 Wednesday (Aug. 13) after the company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange, and ended the day at $68, the Financial Times (FT) reported Wednesday.

This surge gave the Peter Thiel-backed crypto exchange a fully diluted market value of almost $10 billion, according to the report.

Bullish President Chris Tyrer told the FT: “Public capital markets are demonstrating a desire to invest in crypto-focused companies.”

The company announced Aug. 4 that it had started the roadshow for its IPO and that it expected the IPO price to be between $28 and $31 per ordinary share, subject to market conditions.

A week later, on Monday (Aug. 11), Bullish increased the expected price range to $32 to $33.

A day after that, on Tuesday (Aug. 12), the company announced that the public offering price would be $37.

Bullish described itself in a Tuesday press release as an “institutionally focused global digital asset platform” that offers the digital assets exchange Bullish Exchange, tradable proprietary and single-asset benchmarks and indices called CoinDesk Indices, a suite of digital assets market data and analytics called CoinDesk Data, and a digital asset media and events provider and operator called CoinDesk Insights.

In a Monday press release, the company said it “intends to use the proceeds of this offering for general corporate and working capital purposes, including funding potential acquisitions.”

An earlier attempt by Bullish to go public ended in December 2022. At that time, the company and the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Far Peak Acquisition said that they had mutually agreed to terminate their proposed business combination.

Bullish said at the time that its quest to go public was taking longer than expected as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) worked to develop a regulatory framework for digital assets.

It was reported in June that Bullish had resurrected it plans to go public after the successful IPO of Circle, which raised $1.1 billion with its IPO, more than doubling expectations.