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Founded in 2020 by Brendan Blumer and led by Tom Farley, Bullish Global operates a regulated Cayman Islands cryptocurrency exchange providing blockchain technology infrastructure for institutional investors. The company has processed over one trillion two hundred fifty billion dollars in cumulative transaction volume as of March 2025, while holding approximately 24,000 Bitcoins directly on its corporate balance sheet. After securing an initial 300 million dollars from outside investors alongside early seed funding, the firm successfully raised an additional one billion one hundred million dollars through an initial public offering in August 2025. Bullish Global expanded its core operations beyond exchange infrastructure by acquiring the prominent digital media outlet CoinDesk for approximately 75 million dollars in November 2023. The organization is financially backed by several highly recognizable individual investors, including Peter Thiel, Alan Howard, and Richard Li.
Bullish Global has raised $300.0M across 1 funding round.
Bullish Global has raised $300.0M in total across 1 funding round.
Bullish Global has raised $300.0M in total across 1 funding round.
Bullish Global's investors include Alumni Ventures, CrunchFund, Founders Fund, Galaxy Digital, Hashed, Andreas Haug, Immeasurable, London Venture Partners, Mithril Capital Management, Norrsken VC, Pantera Capital, Presight Capital.
Bullish Global has raised $300.0M across 1 funding round. Most recently, it raised $300.0M Series U in May 2021.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 1, 2021 | $300M Series U | — | Alumni Ventures, CrunchFund, Founders Fund, Galaxy Digital, Hashed, Andreas Haug, Immeasurable, London Venture Partners, Mithril Capital Management, Norrsken VC, Pantera Capital, Presight Capital, Uncork Capital, Visionaries Club, Y Combinator, Jaan Tallinn, Jeremy YAP, JON KOL | Announced |
Bullish is a blockchain technology company and cryptocurrency exchange that operates the Bullish Exchange platform, providing infrastructure and services for trading digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Headquartered in George Town, Cayman Islands, it targets institutions with low-fee, high-performance trading while also owning media outlet CoinDesk; as of March 2025, it processed $1.25 trillion in transactions, including $284.8 billion in Bitcoin and $144.5 billion in Ethereum trades in 2024.[1][2][3] Licensed in Germany, Hong Kong, Gibraltar, and New York State, Bullish went public via IPO in August 2025, raising $1.1 billion under ticker BLSH on the NYSE, and serves institutions, serious traders, and individual investors by driving adoption of stablecoins, digital assets, and blockchain tech through market infrastructure, news, data, indices, and events like Consensus.[1][3][4][5]
Bullish was founded in 2020 in Hong Kong by Brendan Blumer, previously of Block.one, which launched the EOS.IO blockchain. It launched operations in May 2021 after being seeded by Block.one with 164,000 Bitcoins (valued at ~$9.7 billion), $100 million cash, and 20 million EOS.IO tokens, plus $300 million from investors like Peter Thiel, Alan Howard, Louis Bacon, Christian Angermayer, and Richard Li; it incorporated in the Cayman Islands on June 22, 2021.[1] A planned $9 billion SPAC merger in 2021 fell through in December 2022 due to regulatory hurdles, but Bullish acquired CoinDesk for ~$75 million in November 2023 and achieved a public listing via IPO in August 2025.[1][3]
Bullish rides the surge in institutional crypto adoption, stablecoins, and blockchain infrastructure amid maturing regulations and post-2024 bull market momentum, where Bitcoin/Ethereum volumes hit hundreds of billions.[1][4] Its timing aligns with global licensing expansions and a successful 2025 IPO, capitalizing on market forces like ETF inflows (e.g., its holdings in crypto-themed funds) and demand for compliant, high-volume platforms.[1][3] By owning CoinDesk and Consensus, Bullish shapes industry narratives, fosters Web3 communities, and bridges traditional finance with digital assets, influencing ecosystem growth through trusted data and events.[3]
Bullish is poised for expansion as a public entity, leveraging its $1.1 billion IPO war chest to enhance trading tech, media reach, and global licenses amid rising stablecoin utility and tokenized assets. Trends like regulatory clarity, AI-blockchain integration, and ETF proliferation will amplify its infrastructure role, potentially evolving it into a dominant player bridging TradFi and crypto—much like how its 2020 founding timed the exchange boom, now public status cements its institutional edge.[1][3][4]
