Bullish is an institutionally focused digital-asset exchange and market-infrastructure company. The business was announced in May 2021, the current Cayman Islands parent was incorporated the following month, and Bullish Exchange began live trading in November 2021. The group’s principal executive offices are in George Town, Grand Cayman. Thomas W. Farley serves as chief executive officer and chairman, while Brendan Blumer is a co-founder and director.
The platform combines a central limit order book with a proprietary automated market maker that contributes liquidity to the same order book. Across the group, products include spot and margin trading, perpetual and dated futures, options, over-the-counter services, institutional trading accounts, portfolio margin and REST, FIX and WebSocket APIs. Markets include Bitcoin, Ether and a broader range of digital assets and stablecoins, although supported assets, fiat currencies and products vary by operating entity and customer location. Margin and derivatives are restricted to eligible customers in selected jurisdictions; Bullish launched its U.S. service with spot trading in October 2025.
Bullish’s regulatory status is jurisdiction-specific. Bullish US Operations LLC is licensed by the New York State Department of Financial Services for virtual-currency business and money transmission, registered with FinCEN as a money services business, and licensed as a money transmitter in selected states. Bullish Europe holds a MiCAR authorisation from Germany’s BaFin for spot trading and custody. Bullish HK Markets Limited holds Hong Kong SFC Type 1, Type 7 and virtual-asset trading platform licences, while the Gibraltar exchange entities are regulated by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission under its distributed-ledger-technology framework.
According to Bullish’s custody disclosures, it operates as a full-reserve exchange, maintains customer assets on a 1:1 basis and segregates them from company assets. It states that customer assets are not lent or used for proprietary trading, daily reconciliations compare custody holdings with account balances, and most assets are stored offline in cold wallets. Disclosed controls include multisignature processes, isolated private keys and custody technology or services from BitGo and Fireblocks.
For detailed fees, market availability, trading features, security analysis, usability, deposits, withdrawals and other review-specific information, see our full Bullish exchange review.
Ownership History
Bullish was launched with backing from Block.one and additional strategic investors. Following an internal reorganisation in April 2023, the current Cayman-incorporated Bullish became the group parent. Block.one remained the majority owner until July 2024, after which it transferred most of its holding to certain shareholders. Bullish acquired CoinDesk in November 2023 and CCData in October 2024. It completed its initial public offering in August 2025, and its shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker BLSH.