By Ateev Bhandari, Atharva Singh and Hannah Lang<\/p>\n
(Reuters) -Cryptocurrency exchange operator Bullish was valued at about $13.16 billion after its shares surged more than 143% in their NYSE debut on Wednesday, underscoring investor confidence in the sector and lifting prospects for future U.S. listings by other digital asset firms.<\/p>\n
The stock opened at $90 versus an initial public offering price of $37.<\/p>\n
The parent of crypto news website CoinDesk raised $1.11 billion in its IPO, valuing the company at $5.4 billion \u2014 another sign of mainstream adoption in a market that recently topped $4 trillion.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Exchange operator Gemini and asset manager Grayscale are also among the crypto firms that have confidentially filed to go public.<\/p>\n
“We’ve gone public today, and there’s a slew of others that are going to follow us, and I think that is net beneficial, because it gives people more options in terms of how they access this asset class,” Bullish President Chris Tyrer told Reuters in an interview.<\/p>\n
Bullish is close to concluding a two-year process to obtain a virtual currency license known as a “BitLicense” in New York, which would allow the company to operate in the state, Tyrer said.<\/p>\n
The BitLicense requires companies to comply with requirements related to know-your-customer, anti-money laundering and capital.<\/p>\n
Peter Thiel-backed Bullish plans to convert a significant portion of the IPO proceeds to stablecoins \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
INSTITUTIONAL FOCUS<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 in 401(k) retirement plans.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
Bullish CEO Tom Farley was previously the president of NYSE.<\/p>\n
“For a sector still overcoming reputational headwinds, that kind of leadership experience can be a differentiator in securing institutional mandates,” Hall said.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Ateev Bhandari and Atharva Singh in Bengaluru and Hannah Lang in New York; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar, Devika Syamnath and Tasim Zahid)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ateev Bhandari, Atharva Singh and Hannah Lang (Reuters) -Cryptocurrency exchange operator Bullish was valued at about $13.16…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[21844,28,56320,23849,56322,11896,56321,930,3123],"class_list":["post-80153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-bullish","tag-business","tag-cryptocurrency-exchange","tag-digital-asset","tag-exchange-operator","tag-initial-public-offering","tag-ipo-boutique","tag-nyse","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}