Billionaire investors Nomura and Thiel support $10 billion investment in a fresh cryptocurrency exchange, Bullish, by Block.one.
Block.one, the founder of the public blockchain EOSIO, has announced the launch of a new cryptocurrency exchange, Bullish, with a staggering $10 billion in funding. This ambitious project aims to position itself as a major institutional crypto exchange integrated deeply with traditional financial systems.
The funding for the new exchange comes from various sources. Most notably, $9.7 billion comes from Block.one itself, and $300 million comes from outside strategic investors. These include notable names such as Nomura, Peter Thiel's Thiel Capital, Founders Fund, Alan Howard, Louis Bacon, Richard Li, Christian Angermayer, and Mike Novogratz's Galaxy Digital. Peter Thiel has also joined Bullish as an investor and advisor.
Bullish's balance sheet is strong, offering stability and liquidity to the cryptocurrency space. The exchange plans to launch this year and will offer automated market making, lending, and portfolio management tools.
One of the key benefits of a DeFi-like approach, as Block.one refers to it, is what they call vertical integration. This allows greater mobility of cryptocurrencies, a crucial factor in a rapidly evolving market. The EOS blockchain will be used to provide an audit trail of all transactions.
The new exchange aims to combine the best features of centralized exchanges and decentralized finance (DeFi). However, it's important to note that the largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, already offers liquidity pools.
Bullish requires around $10 billion in funding—far exceeding Coinbase's total funding of $547 million. This significant difference reflects the scale of operations, strategic positioning for institutional and regulated market access, and the capital intensity of competing at the top-tier level within crypto trading and liquidity markets.
The ambitious strategy of Bullish includes targeting institutional investors with high-performance trading and deep liquidity services, preparing for a highly regulated U.S. IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, and pursuing aggressive growth and market share capture in a volatile and competitive crypto market. These goals demand substantial financial resources to meet compliance, regulatory, and transparency standards imposed by the SEC, as well as large operational expenditures and risk capital.
Interestingly, Alan Howard, one of the co-founders of Komainu, an institutional digital asset custody initiative, is also an investor in Coinshares. Three of the strategic investors, Nomura, Alan Howard, and Galaxy Digital, also invested in Komainu.
In the last cryptocurrency bull market, Block.one conducted the largest ever ICO of $4 billion for EOSIO. Currently, EOS, the cryptocurrency from EOSIO, is ranked 23rd with a market capitalization of $9.3 billion. The EOS cryptocurrency price has increased more than 70% since last Wednesday.
Coinbase, a well-established cryptocurrency exchange, currently has a market capitalization of $57 billion. However, it's important to note that Coinbase’s $547 million funding was raised primarily through earlier-stage venture capital rounds leading up to and prior to its 2021 IPO, reflecting a different growth phase and scale of ambitions compared to Bullish’s current IPO and expansion plans.
As the cryptocurrency market continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how Bullish's ambitious strategy unfolds and its impact on the industry.
- The new cryptocurrency exchange, Bullish, funded with a massive $10 billion, is positioned to become a major institutional exchange, integrating deeply with traditional financial systems and using the EOS blockchain for an audit trail.
- The exchange plans to launch this year and will offer automated market making, lending, and portfolio management tools, aiming to combine the best features of centralized exchanges and decentralized finance (DeFi).
- The ambitious strategy of Bullish includes targeting institutional investors and preparing for a U.S. IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, with substantial financial resources needed to meet compliance, regulatory, and transparency standards.
- Notable investors in Bullish include Peter Thiel's Thiel Capital, Founders Fund, Alan Howard, Louis Bacon, Richard Li, Christian Angermayer, and Mike Novogratz's Galaxy Digital, who are also investors in Komainu, an institutional digital asset custody initiative.
