Bullish: Earnings And New York BitLicense Spell Buy

Summary Bullish has shown strong institutional interest post-IPO, reporting robust Q2 results and a swing to profitability, despite shares being down 21% since going public. Bullish's revenue diversification is accelerating, with subscription services up 61% and a major boost from its newly awarded New York ￰0￱ trading spreads and high liquidity position Bullish as an attractive platform for institutional clients, though revenue growth depends on increasing trading ￰1￱ remains steep, but with US expansion imminent and ARK Invest backing, long-term growth prospects justify a bullish outlook despite near-term volatility. I hereon share my sentiment on bullish and why I see more positives for the long ￰2￱ thesis Bullish ( BLSH ) is a company that has only recently gone ￰3￱ then, it has gained lots of attention from institutions and investors that have bought into the growth ￰4￱ stock is down about 21% since going public; however, I think it’s showing us all the right signs to be an outperformer in the back end of the ￰5￱ company primarily operates as a trading platform for digital assets, and each time institutions trade crypto, Bullish takes a cut through its ￰6￱ reported their first earnings this week, with results showing us about $24.1 million in ‘adjusted transaction revenue.’ Despite this, spreads have tightened a bit since last year, pointing towards the company's dependence on volume growth rather than those wide margins we once ￰7￱ of its fastest-growing segments would have to be its subscription services, which brought in $32 million last quarter, up a whopping 61% since last ￰8￱ earns licensing fees from financial institutions that use its benchmarks, indices, and market ￰9￱ wins also came this week in terms of licensing, with the company getting awarded a New York BitLicense.

Traditionally, this is one of the strictest districts for training licenses, so this is a bullish sign for the company moving ￰10￱ earnings, the stock rose initially 6% and is now up another 9% pre-market ￰11￱ stock finds itself trading in the mid-$55 range. I'm initiating my coverage with a ￰12￱ 2Q25 results 2Q25 results came in for Bullish yesterday, and all around, it was a solid second quarter, which boosted shares about 6%. Bullish stock has had a bit of a rough time transitioning into life as a public company, down about 21% since going ￰13￱ results were highlighted by a sharp swing into ￰14￱ reported a net income of $108.3 million, or about $0.93 per diluted ￰15￱ this looks very good when compared with a loss of $116.4 million, or $-1.03 per share, in the same quarter last ￰16￱ we’re seeing a lot stronger trading activity and better cost management from the company, even though certain adjusted metrics showed ￰17￱ revenue came in at roughly $57.0 million, down slightly from the $60.7 million we saw a year earlier, while adjusted EBITDA fell to $8.1 million from $14.7 million across the same ￰18￱ year-over-year dip in adjusted results implies to me narrower trading ￰19￱ spreads compressed to 1.3 basis points from 2.6; it’s a trend consistent with deeper liquidity and a competitive trading ￰20￱ this, overall trading volumes surged, with a whopping $179.6 billion in ￰21￱ figure is up 35% year-over-year, driving much of that topline ￰22￱ we go beyond trading revenue, Bullish’s diversification strategy is becoming increasingly visible if we look at the numbers.

Subscriptions, Services, and Other revenue climbed to $32.9 million, and it now makes up more than half of adjusted ￰23￱ share has made a 61% sequential jump and 27% year-over-year ￰24￱ growth is showing us a lot of strength in information services, including CoinDesk Indices, which ended the quarter with $41 billion in ￰25￱ CoinDesk Indices are up $9 billion from Q1. However, adjusted net income was still negative at $6.0 ￰26￱ emphasized that the investments behind these revenue streams, particularly in cross-selling opportunities and product development such as the forthcoming options trading platform, are already driving momentum into the third ￰27￱ terms of outlook, the company guided for Q3 guidance with an adjusted revenue of $69 to $76 million and adjusted EBITDA of $25 to $28 ￰28￱ seems confident that diversification and operational leverage will translate into much stronger profitability in the near ￰29￱ A New York BitLicense This week, the company announced that its US subsidiary has been granted a Virtual Currency Business Activity ￰30￱ is more commonly known as the BitLicense, a special type of license issued by the New York State Department of Financial ￰31￱ license allows the company to do both digital asset spot trading and custody services in New York.

Now, this is a pretty big milestone for Bullish’s expansion into the US ￰32￱ we combine this new license with its existing Money Transmission License, the approval puts Bullish in a very small group of firms operating under the state’s very strict regulatory ￰33￱ license comes just one month after Bullish’s NYSE debut, which was one of 2025’s most closely watched ￰34￱ exchange had arranged to receive $1.15 billion of its IPO proceeds in stablecoins . It's a deal that helps integrate the company into digital ￰35￱ with the New York entry secured, Bullish trading platform and its custody services are set to roll out in one of the most tightly regulated and lucrative digital asset ￰36￱ announcement also landed on the same day as the company’s first quarterly earnings report since going public, which helped give the stock that extra ￰37￱ top of this news, Cathay Wood’s Ark Invest has just bought about 160,000 shares of the stock, which is tipped to be worth about $8.3 ￰38￱ buy-in was split between two of Ark’s ETFs, with about 120,609 shares going to the Innovation ETF and the rest into the Next Generation International ￰39￱ total, it brings ARK Invest’s total Bullish holdings to $129 ￰40￱ firm has heavily backed the company since its public debut last month, when it initially acquired about $172 million in shares at the ￰41￱ competition While Coinbase ( COIN ), Kraken, and Gemini dominate the US trading space right now, I think Bullish can catch ￰42￱ company needs to find its own niche through a primarily institutional-first ￰43￱ edge they can gain here lies in offering much tighter trading ￰44￱ you think about it, we saw 1.3 bps from Bullish compared to Coinbase’s roughly 50 to 100 bps for ￰45￱ I mean by this is that Bullish’s spread compressed to just 1.3 bps, so the difference between what a buyer is willing to pay and what the seller is asking is extremely small, giving Bullish the higher liquidity and much lower cost for traders.

It's a big differentiating factor for institutions choosing which platform to use. However, it also means that Bullish is making significantly less per unit traded from the spread when spreads are ￰46￱ if we want that revenue to grow, we need volume to go up. I see this happening as such tight spreads will appeal to institutional ￰47￱ Kraken, for example, institutional clients with 30-day spot crypto volume over $100M can get 0.08% taker fees. I summarize the competition's appeal against Bullish in the table ￰48￱ Techie Valuation As of yesterday, the company carries a market cap of roughly $7.95 billion with an enterprise value of $8.33 ￰49￱ company has a pretty modest debt load of $652.7 million with $288.7 million in cash reserves.

Now, where things get interesting for me are their forward valuation ￰50￱ per Seeking Alpha, the company carries a forward price-to-sales ratio of 33.14 and a forward EV-to-sales ratio of ￰51￱ with the absence of a sector median (the company has only gone public recently), it's clear to see investors are paying a premium for each dollar of expected ￰52￱ it's no secret that investors and institutions are already pricing in rapid ￰53￱ estimates are showing Bullish swinging to profitability by 2027 to 2028, with the price-to-earnings falling from about 111x in 2026 to 46x by ￰54￱ the steep valuation means the market is willing to look past near-term losses and pay up for that long-term ￰55￱ we take a look at Bullish's chart since its IPO, we can see it's down against the SPY, and it's still going through quite turbulent times while the stock tries to find its ￰56￱ Alpha What's Next?

With the New York BitLicense now secured, we should expect an expansion into the US market for next ￰57￱ we need to keep an eye on is how quickly they can onboard US institutions and whether we see spot trading volumes increase ￰58￱ competition in the US is pretty hefty, with the likes of Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini all being established, so Bullish needs some differentiation through their spades and institutional services.