Bullish Posts $280M Q2 Loss as Asset Sales Drop 44%

Peter Thiel-backed crypto exchange Bullish posted a $280 million net loss in the second quarter, narrower than the $604.9 million loss in Q1 2026 but still substantial enough to keep pressure on a stock trading well below its IPO price. The company reported adjusted revenue up 62% year over year to $92.6 million, even as digital asset sales fell 44% to $32.6 billion from $58.6 billion. Adjusted EBITDA improved to $29.5 million from $8.1 million, and subscription, services, and other revenue hit a record $62.7 million as the firm leaned harder on CoinDesk and Consensus to cross-sell into its exchange and indices business.

Why it matters

The split-screen is the story: revenue and EBITDA are improving, but the core trading franchise is shrinking fast, and the equity is still bleeding. BLSH closed at $24.63 on Wednesday, below last year's $37 IPO price and a fraction of its $74 post-listing peak. CFO Dave Bonanno framed the subscription record as the cross-sell engine at work, with clients arriving through CoinDesk and Consensus before expanding into data, indices, liquidity, and the exchange. The full-year 2026 guidance revision ($225M to $245M in subscription, services, and other revenue; $225M to $230M in adjusted operating expenses; $52M to $60M in finance expenses) is the management case for why the loss narrows from here.

Market impact

Bullish is now leaning on the $4.2 billion proposed acquisition of Equiniti, due to close in early 2027, to recast itself as the venue for issuer-sponsored tokenized securities. CEO Tom Farley pointed to the nearly $300 trillion global securities market moving onto public blockchains as the prize. The deal carries $1.85 billion of assumed Equiniti debt and roughly $2.35 billion in Bullish stock, so execution risk is real if rates or equity markets wobble before close. Bullish also holds the sixth-largest corporate BTC treasury at about 24,300 BTC. The next read is whether subscription revenue keeps absorbing the trading decline; if not, the path to a smaller quarterly loss depends almost entirely on whether the Equiniti integration lands.