By Ateev Bhandari and Atharva Singh
(Reuters) -Bullish’s shares were indicated to open more than 75% above their initial public offering price on Wednesday, signaling growing investor confidence in the sector and boosting prospects for future U.S. listings by other digital asset firms.
If the billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel-backed crypto exchange starts to trade at the last indicated range of $60 to $65 on the NYSE, it could potentially value the company at more than $9.5 billion.
Bullish raised $1.11 billion in an IPO priced at $37 apiece, valuing it at $5.4 billion and marking another sign of mainstream adoption in a sector that recently topped $4 trillion.
“Bullish came out with an attractive initial valuation, and investors responded by aggressively bidding it up during the pre-IPO process,” said Jeff Zell, senior research analyst at IPO Boutique.
A string of regulatory wins under a pro-crypto White House, corporate treasury adoption, and ETF inflows have prompted investors to embrace the once-scorned digital asset class, driving bellwether bitcoin to record highs.
Several crypto firms, including exchange Gemini and asset manager Grayscale, have also confidentially filed to go public.
“Crypto is becoming one of the big pillars of the IPO market, with more deals expected not only via IPO but also through de-SPAC transactions,” IPOX CEO Josef Schuster said, referring to take-public blank-check mergers that are frequently used by crypto firms.
Bullish, which acquired cryptocurrency website CoinDesk in 2023, plans to convert a significant portion of the IPO proceeds to stablecoins — a slice of the crypto space that has boomed since U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Genius Act, creating a regulatory regime for the dollar-pegged cryptocurrencies.
INSTITUTIONAL FOCUS
Bullish’s debut marks a rare U.S. listing by a crypto exchange, joining larger retail-focused rival Coinbase, which became the first crypto player to be included in the benchmark S&P 500 index in May.
Founded in 2020, Bullish targets institutional clients whose crypto holdings are expected to rise as a new White House order aims to allow alternative investments like crypto in 401(k) retirement plans.
“A pure institutional strategy positions Bullish for more stable, recurring revenue than exchanges reliant on retail volumes, which tend to be cyclical and sentiment-driven,” said Michael Hall, co-chief investment officer and founding partner at Nickel Digital Asset Management.
Bullish CEO Tom Farley had previously worked as the president of NYSE.
“For a sector still overcoming reputational headwinds, that kind of leadership experience can be a differentiator in securing institutional mandates,” Hall said.
(Reporting by Ateev Bhandari and Atharva Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
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