Peter Thiel’s $10B Crypto IPO Explained (Bullish)
Duration
9:15
Captions
1
Language
EN
Published
Aug 11, 2025
Description
Join my discord to talk stocks: https://discord.gg/V872CU5avp Peter Thiel’s crypto exchange Bullish is about to go public this week — and it’s chasing a $1T opportunity to become the BlackRock of crypto. Here's everything you need to know ahead of the IPO expected to hit markets on Wednesday, 8/13. Disclaimer: This is NOT financial advice, do your own research. 0:00 Intro 0:31 Company Origins 01:46 What Bullish Actually Does 03:32 How Bullish Makes Money + Financials 05:50 Risks 07:15 $1T Bull Case About Michael Sikand: I am a Forbes 30 under 30 entrepreneur who has spent the past 5 years investing and creating videos about business, tech, and finance. My first company, Our Future, made short-form videos and reached 1M+ cross-platform followers, before it was acquired by media giant Morning Brew in 2023. With this new channel, my videos focus on exciting publicly traded companies that will grow your wealth and knowledge. #IPO #finance #stocks
Captions (1)
Peter Teal's crypto exchange is about to
go public and it has a vision to become
the black rockck of crypto, forming a
bridge for how the world's richest and
oldest financial institutions diversify
their trillions into the world of DeFi.
This business is complex, but I did the
hard work laying it all out for you. By
the end of this video, you'll understand
where Bullish stands today and its
potential if it can execute on its goals
in the next few years. Before we dive
in, please note this video is
forformational purposes only. It's not
financial advice and make sure to do
your own research.
Bullish's origins are critical to
understanding the problem that this
business is solving. And yet again, we
have another crypto story that starts
with video games. Brendan Bloomer got
his start in business at age 15, selling
magic swords in World of Warcraft. Then
he founded Hong Kong's largest digital
property agency, but his biggest venture
would be Block One, the company behind a
record-breaking $4 billion initial coin
offering in 2017. Now, it was around
this time that Brendan realized the
problem that Bullish would later solve.
Block 1's ICO left them sitting on
billions in crypto assets, but they had
no clear path to monetize them. That's
when Bloomer had his light bulb moment.
Institutions with massive assets like
Block One wanted to trade crypto, but
they couldn't use exchanges like Binance
because of compliance and liquidity
problems. So, what if there was a crypto
exchange built specifically for the
needs of large asset managers? That's
bullish. In 2021, Block One spun out
Bullish as a subsidiary, seating it with
billions in assets to get started. Then
Peter Thiel caught wind of the
opportunity. He led Bullish's 300
million strategic funding round and
became an adviser. Tiel wasn't just
betting on crypto. He was betting that
the future belonged to whoever could
bridge the divide between traditional
finance and decentralized finance. And
Bullish with its massive treasury and a
compliance first approach looked best
positioned to win that future.
Okay guys, so I still haven't told you
what Bullish actually does as a company,
but by the end of this section, you
should have a pretty solid
understanding. When you think of a
crypto exchange, you probably think of
Coinbase or Binance. A bullish is very
different because it doesn't serve any
retail investors. There's no consumers
involved with this. And it
differentiates itself based on two core
tenants: credibility and liquidity.
Let's start with the latter. When
institutions trade on platforms like
Binance or Coinbase, they're competing
with millions of retail users for
liquidity. And that can disappear during
market crashes. With a typical exchange,
when you want to buy Bitcoin, they match
you with someone selling it. But if
there aren't enough sellers, the price
jumps and you pay more. Bullish solved
this by creating their own massive pool
of cryptocurrencies in a treasury
format. So 90% of that is Bitcoin and in
total it's worth around $2 billion. When
institutions want to trade, bullish can
provide liquidity from their own stash,
keeping prices stable even during market
chaos. Now this is critical for
riskaverse institutions. They might need
to move hundreds of millions in crypto
fast without affecting market prices and
also trying to line up a buyer. Now
credibility is the other side of the
coin. The dominant consumer-f facing
exchanges don't meet the robust
compliance or security requirements
institutions like pension funds require.
While Bullish is not licensed in the US
yet, it does have licenses in over 50
jurisdictions. And Bullish's CEO is
another arrow in their quiver to create
more credibility around their compliance
first approach. Tom Farley ran the New
York Stock Exchange from 2014 to 2018.
This guy literally ran Wall Street for
half a decade and built relationships
with the same kind of customers that
Bullish wants to attract to its
ecosystem. If Bullish's goal is to
convince traditional finance that crypto
is ready for the real money, the CEO can
open more than a few doors. Banks don't
respond to the SPF crypto bro in a
hoodie playing video games. They need to
know their big boy money is safe. And
that credibility, that's the trillion
dollar prize that bullish is chasing.
A crypto exchange exclusive to the
richest organizations in the world
sounds like a great business. But let's
dive into the actual numbers because if
you don't understand them, it could be
extremely costly. Bullish's finances are
a bit difficult to understand because
they operate as both a crypto exchange
and investment fund and that makes it
difficult to sus out performance. I
think I figured it out though, so don't
worry. Bullish counted 250 billion in
revenue for the 12 months ending March
2025. That's up 78% year-over-year. But
don't be deceived by that big number
because that's just the volume for the
trades that they handled. Reporting
revenue in this way is like if eBay
counted the value of all the products it
sold as revenue instead of the fees they
charge the sellers, which is how they
actually make money. Now, the real story
is a bit more nuanced. Bullish makes
money through three main streams.
Trading fees from institutions executing
crypto trades, usually around.1%,
treasury income from their massive 2
billion in crypto holdings, and media
revenue from Coindesk, the media brand
they bought that brings in around 50
million annually. Now, here's where
things get weird, though. Bullish swung
from $105 million profit in Q1 2024 to a
$349 million loss in Q1 of this year.
And while they're estimating a profit of
over a hundred million in Q2, how did
profits crash so dramatically? It mainly
comes down to how bullish reports their
finances. They use something called
marktomarket accounting for their crypto
holdings, which means every quarter they
have to report the current market value
of their Bitcoin as either a profit or
loss, even if they haven't sold
anything. So, Bullish blame that $349
million loss on price volatility between
reporting periods. The good news is that
despite the paper losses, Bullish
generated 38 million in operating cash
flow over the past 12 months. This
suggests their core business is cash
flow positive. So, with the IPO coming
up, let's not forget about valuation.
The top of their expected range puts the
business at 4.2 billion. And the way to
see that number is that it's mainly tied
to book value. With 1.9 billion in
digital assets, investors are
essentially paying 2.2 times book value
for these crypto assets plus the
exchange business. Now, you could
justify this in a few different ways.
First, that the exchange business has
significant potential beyond the crypto
it holds. Second, that the professional
management of crypto assets justifies a
premium like with Micro Strategy. And
third, that Bullish's extensive global
regulatory licenses and infrastructure
create a competitive moat worth
billions. It's just hard with this
business to compare it to any other
exchange because its business model is
so unique. Most exchanges don't hold
crypto assets that make their profit
swing wildly and that volatility makes
bullish very risky. So, let's dive into
more of what could go wrong.
Okay, so what's the bare case that could
derail this hypy hot summer IPO? After
this section, you'll walk away with a
core understanding of a couple key risk
factors. The first is that the demand
Bullish wants to go and capture may not
be real. They're building an exchange
for institutions, but institutions might
not want what they're selling. Bitcoin
and Ethereum ETFs launched in 2024 and
attracted tens of billions in inflows.
These ETFs let institutions get crypto
exposure without the headaches of
custody, security, or dealing with
crypto exchanges directly. Why would a
pension fund choose bullish when they
can just buy a Bitcoin ETF through their
existing broker? Traditional banks are
also entering crypto aware of this
growing demand amongst their clients. JP
Morgan, Bank of America, and other major
banks are building their own crypto
trading desks. They're keen to keep the
institutional money in their own
ecosystem and not let it leave for
someone else's. Market volatility, like
I pointed out in the previous section,
is also a massive risk. Bullish's
revenue swings wildly with crypto
prices. When Bitcoin crashes, trading
volumes collapse, institutions pull
back, and Bullish's treasury loses
value. Their own SEC filing admits our
operating results will continue to be
subject to significant fluctuations due
to digital asset price volatility.
Regulatory risks also compound the
problem. Bullish operates across
multiple countries, each with different
crypto rules. If major jurisdictions
like Hong Kong or Singapore were to
change their policies, it could
dramatically affect the business. And if
Bullish can't get licensed in the US
market, it's going to be missing out on
40% of the total global crypto market.
But what if Bullish can execute? And
what if their vision for the future of
money management is correct?
If you're investing in Bullish's
business, you're actually betting on a
broader economic shift happening.
According to Mordor Intelligence, the
crypto market is projected to reach 7.98
trillion by 2030. More importantly, a
Coinbase survey found that 83% of
institutional investors plan to increase
their crypto allocations this year. Now,
that's a lot of bread heading the way of
crypto. Global institutional assets
under management exceed hundred
trillion. And if institutions allocate
just 1% of their assets to crypto, we're
talking about massive sums flowing into
the category, much of which could be
through bullish. To execute on their
grand ambitions, Bullish actually wants
to become more than just an exchange.
They want to white label the
infrastructure that banks and asset
managers need to offer crypto services
to their clients. If your bank ever
offered features like Bitcoin savings
accounts or crypto lending, Bullish
would likely be the invisible force
powering it behind the scenes. But
probably the biggest opportunity of all
that Bullish hasn't yet tapped into is
the US market. They aren't licensed
here, but the Trump administration's
cryptofriendly policies and the recent
Genius Act are opening doors. Circle
successful IPO this summer proved that
US institutions have enormous appetite
for compliant crypto infrastructure. If
bullish can get regulatory approval to
serve US hedge funds, asset managers,
and banks, it would unlock the world's
largest institutional market. And just
like how circles IPO open doors with US
institutions, bullish going public also
sends a similar signal to Wall Street.
Being a public company subjects them to
SEC oversight, quarterly reporting, and
the same scrutiny that these traditional
financial firms face. If institutions
are going to hand you trillions, they
want to make sure you're playing by the
same rules. So, I just told you the
story of Bullish. And to end this out, I
feel like there's two roads where this
thing splits. Those convinced that
crypto will become a core part of
institutional finance might see bullish
as a foundational bet. But if you don't
like the volatility around crypto and
especially Bitcoin treasury businesses,
as well as you think that ETFs are going
to be a more popular mechanism for
institutions to get involved in crypto,
you're probably sitting on the
sidelines. No matter where you stand on
this business, I hope you enjoyed this
video. And if you want more content like
this, I have this one I made on AMD and
this one I made on Figma.