BLSH rose more than 15% at one point.

Written by: Maher, Foresight News

On May 5, the publicly traded cryptocurrency asset platform Bullish reached a final agreement with private equity firm Siris Capital to acquire Equiniti for a total consideration of $4.2 billion. The deal comprises $1.85 billion of existing debt from Equiniti and approximately $2.35 billion in Bullish stock, with the stock issuance price calculated based on the volume-weighted average price (VWAP) of $38.48 per share over the 30 trading days leading up to May 4, 2026, and the transaction requires customary purchase price adjustments.

The transaction is expected to be completed by January 2027, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Following the announcement, Bullish's stock price surged to a high of $48.93, an increase of over 11%.

Equiniti: Core "Registry Management" Service Provider in Traditional Capital Markets

Equiniti, established in the late 19th century, is a transfer agent and shareholder services provider primarily offering core services such as managing registered shareholder records, stock issuance/transfer/cancellation, dividend distribution and reinvestment, shareholder communication, corporate action processing, and tax reporting for listed companies.

Equiniti currently acts as a transfer agent for nearly 3,000 listed companies, serving over 15,000 business clients and managing more than 20 million validated shareholders, processing approximately $500 billion in payments annually.

Equiniti is registered as a transfer agent with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK, possessing a mature compliance framework and cross-market operational capabilities.

In 2021, Siris Capital acquired Equiniti and merged it with its U.S. counterpart AST to create a scaled global transfer agent platform.

Acquisition Logic Directs Toward Tokenization of Trillion-Dollar Blue Ocean

Upon completion of the acquisition, Bullish will own the trading platform Bullish Exchange, media platform CoinDesk, and end-to-end tokenization infrastructure services.

The fourth quarter financial report for 2025 revealed that Bullish's adjusted revenue reached $92.5 million, a significant increase compared to $55.2 million in the same period of 2024; adjusted EBITDA was $44.5 million, showing a substantial improvement with a gross margin of 48%. Full-year adjusted revenue was approximately $288.5 million, reflecting a year-on-year growth of about 35%. Subscription, service, and other revenues reached $54.6 million in Q4 alone, a staggering increase of 284% year-on-year, driven by the launch of options trading, growth in institutional client funds, and expansion of tokenization liquidity services. On February 5, its stock price hit a low of $24.79, and after the earnings report was released, it rose for two consecutive days, reaching $32 at one point.

After the transaction closes, the combined entity of Bullish and Equiniti is expected to generate approximately $1.3 billion in adjusted total revenue for the fiscal year 2026.

Between 2027 and 2029, the combined company anticipates achieving a compound annual revenue growth rate of 6%-8%, with tokenization and blockchain services contributing 20% to revenue growth.

In March of this year, Bullish's total trading volume reached $60.4 billion, a significant decline of about 28% compared to $84.1 billion in February. However, Bullish's perpetual contract trading volume in March hit $4.4 billion, marking a new high since May 2025, and this was achieved amid a decline in total trading volume, indicating counter-cyclical growth.

In the crypto ecosystem, RWA has been seen as the next-generation trillion-dollar track. The bottlenecks for traditional transfer agents lie in manual processing, delayed settlements, and high costs, while blockchain technology can enable instant ownership transfers, fragmented ownership, and 24/7 global liquidity.

Bullish's move may be a response to traditional giants like BlackRock and BNY Mellon laying out strategies for RWA in the crypto space, integrating "regulated transfer agents + crypto exchanges + media data" into a closed-loop ecosystem.

Tom Farley, former president of the New York Stock Exchange and CEO of Bullish, emphasized in the announcement: "Tokenization represents a generational shift in how capital markets operate and is the most defining infrastructure trend for the next 25 years. Large-scale institutional adoption requires three elements: end-to-end tokenization services, a single unified ledger, and scale relationships with blue-chip issuers. This merger delivers all three elements at once."

This also signifies that Bullish will gradually shift from a transaction revenue-driven model to high-margin infrastructure services, potentially enhancing its counter-cyclical capabilities significantly.