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Cryptocurrency exchange Bullish has filed for a US initial public offering as the Peter Thiel-backed group seeks to tap surging investor demand for digital assets under the Trump administration.
The company confidentially filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering in recent weeks, according to two people familiar with the situation.
Confidential filings allow companies to progress their listing plans before publicly revealing their financials closer to pursuing a flotation. Bullish did not respond to requests for comment.
Bullish had attempted to go public through a deal with a special purpose acquisition vehicle in 2021. But the deal fell through the following year as stock markets fell because of rising US interest rates.
Jefferies will work as lead underwriter on the deal. The bank declined to comment on Bullish’s confidential filing.
The company’s planned IPO comes amid strong investor demand for crypto assets in the US, with President Donald Trump’s administration having promised a number of industry-friendly policies and reversed the crackdown on digital assets under Joe Biden.
Trump’s friendliness to the industry has helped propel the price of bitcoin above $100,000, while a flurry of crypto-related listings have dragged the US IPO market back to life after a slow start to the year.
Circle Internet raised $1.1bn in its IPO last week, more than double expectations, and soared 168 per cent on its Wall Street debut — the biggest-ever first day stock price increase for a billion-dollar US listing, according to Renaissance Capital, which tracks IPO issuance.
The stablecoin operator’s wildly successful first few days on the public market appears to have encouraged other crypto groups to follow suit. Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange run by the Winklevoss twins, last Friday confidentially filed to list in the US.
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss contributed to Trump’s presidential campaign and threw their weight behind a political action committee funded by the crypto industry to support politicians sympathetic to their cause.
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Bullish describes itself as a blockchain-based crypto exchange offering “market leading order depth and consistently tight spreads”. Its chief executive Tom Farley served as president of the NYSE Group of Intercontinental Exchange from 2014 to 2018. Thiel donated to Trump’s first election campaign in 2015 and 2016.
Trump has tied his colours to crypto’s mast despite having once said that bitcoin “seems like a scam”.
In late May, the Trump family’s media company said it would raise $2.5bn from investors to create a “bitcoin treasury”. Later that month the president’s sons Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump extolled the virtues of bitcoin at a conference in Las Vegas.
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