Bullish (NYSE:BLSH) executives used the company’s fourth-quarter 2025 earnings call to emphasize what they described as accelerating institutional adoption, rapid traction in newly launched options trading, and expanding demand for tokenization-related services, even as digital asset prices have fallen sharply in recent months.
Chairman and CEO Tom Farley said Bullish closed 2025 with “strong momentum,” pointing to record results and a strategy centered on regulated institutional markets. Farley framed the next phase of digital asset growth as being driven by tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) and broader institutional adoption of blockchain technology. He added that Bullish believes it is positioned to benefit from volatility and potentially pursue inorganic opportunities, stating the current market environment may create “promising opportunities to grow … organically as well as through M&A.”
Fourth-quarter financial performance
On the quarter, management highlighted record performance in several profitability measures:
- Total adjusted revenue was $92.5 million for 4Q25 and $288.5 million for full-year 2025. Bonanno said this represented approximately 35% growth for the full year and nearly 70% growth in the fourth quarter compared with 4Q24.
- SS&O revenue (a line item referenced repeatedly by management) was a record $54.6 million in 4Q25, up 284% year-over-year, and brought full-year 2025 SS&O revenue to $157.7 million, up nearly 160% from 2024.
- Adjusted operating expenses were $48.1 million in 4Q25, “roughly flat” sequentially and at the bottom end of prior guidance, according to Bonanno.
- Adjusted EBITDA was $44.5 million in 4Q25, which management said was a record and equated to a 48% margin. Full-year adjusted EBITDA was $94.3 million.
- Adjusted net income was $28.9 million in 4Q25 and $38.8 million for full-year 2025.
Bonanno said fourth-quarter SS&O revenue exceeded the high end of the company’s previously provided guidance. He also noted that Bullish is not providing full-year adjusted transaction revenue guidance for 2026, encouraging investors instead to monitor monthly exchange metrics because adjusted transaction revenue can be volatile.
2026 guidance and key assumptions
For 2026, Bullish guided to SS&O revenue of $220 million to $250 million and adjusted operating expenses of $210 million to $230 million. Bonanno said the midpoint of SS&O guidance implies roughly 50% year-over-year growth, supported by momentum across business lines, “steadily increasing tokenized RWA liquidity service bookings,” and expanded cross-selling, pricing, and product development. He said the outlook also assumes offsets from “unfavorable comparable market conditions” for asset prices and interest rates versus 2025, as well as selective sunsetting of older liquidity services products as the company optimizes for margin expansion.
On expenses, he said the midpoint reflects low single-digit growth in the existing cost structure plus incremental expenses tied to moving the flagship Consensus North America conference to Miami from Toronto and new performance-based incentives tied to sales-force and exchange-participant growth outcomes. Bonanno also guided to 2026 finance expense of $52 million to $60 million, described as flat to slightly down from the fourth-quarter run rate.
In Q&A, management pointed to potential regulatory catalysts. Asked what could push results toward the high end of SS&O guidance, the company said “swift and effective passage of an infrastructure bill” in the U.S. could “unlock and accelerate” its pipeline, while macro headwinds were “baked into” the guidance.
Options trading traction and institutional exchange growth
Farley said Bullish set records in 2025 for monthly active customers, total customer funds on platform, and open interest for perpetual futures and options. He described accelerating growth in active trading clients globally, including onboarding institutions in Europe, Asia, and the U.S. He said the October 29 options launch brought in a “whole new set” of institutional clients who also began trading across other Bullish products.
Management highlighted early market share gains in options. Farley said that by the end of the quarter Bullish had more than $2 billion in options open interest, and earlier in 2026 it reached more than $4 billion in open interest and a high of 29% volume market share. He said Bullish is now the “clear number two” Bitcoin options platform globally by open interest and is now focused on continuing to gain share with an aspiration to become the market leader.
Farley and executives repeatedly cited Bullish’s “one global order book” and cross-margining across spot, futures, and options as differentiators, arguing that consolidated liquidity and real-time margin offsets are resonating with institutional users.
Tokenization, liquidity services, and regulatory posture
Farley said Bullish’s liquidity services business is increasingly being used by tokenization-focused asset issuers, positioning the company to support listings, liquidity provision, marketing, and research. He argued that while creating a token can be straightforward, making it successful requires exchange and market support functions that Bullish is aiming to provide.
In 4Q25, Farley said Bullish added liquidity services partners including IOTA, VeChain, Paxos, and Midnight, and also added Canton. He also referenced signing USD.AI, which executives discussed as an example of tokenization and on-chain capital markets innovation. Bonanno said USD.AI’s platform allows users to invest in a pool of tokenized treasury bills and fully secured GPU-backed loans, with assets under management exceeding $650 million.
Farley said Bullish expects to list five new partner assets “in this week alone,” including Fidelity’s new stablecoin, and described the pipeline as strong. He also said Bullish is now registered to act as a transfer agent and is exploring additional U.S. licenses including DCO, DCM, broker-dealer, and ATS. Farley added the company intends to list tokenized securities in 2026 and said it is working with market participants and regulators toward that goal.
On market structure legislation, Farley said he has spent time in Washington and sees “a path” to passage of the Clarity Act, while noting several contentious issues including stablecoin yields, DeFi KYC/AML standards, and ethics/conflicts provisions. He said he is “hopeful and even a little bit optimistic” passage could occur before the summer, while cautioning he is not a legislative forecaster. In a separate exchange, Bullish said that if legislation limited intermediaries’ ability to pay interest on stablecoins, it expects minimal to no financial impact on its liquidity services business due to carve-outs in draft texts for liquidity and service providers receiving rewards.
CoinDesk Indices, insights, and the Consensus franchise
Farley also highlighted growth in Bullish’s information services. He said CoinDesk Indices served as benchmark data provider for 30 different single-token ETFs launched in 2025, including 15 of 39 new digital asset ETFs in the fourth quarter. He cited mandates from issuers including ARK and ProShares.
Farley said Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) is expected to launch futures benchmarked to CoinDesk Indices, including cash-settled futures tracking CoinDesk 20 and CoinDesk 5 and single-token indices for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, and what he described as the first regulated exposure to BNB in U.S. markets.
On events, executives said Consensus conferences are expected to be larger in 2026 than in 2025, and Bullish intends to expand how it uses the Consensus franchise to support partners and drive growth across the business. However, management said Consensus-related SS&O growth is likely to be at the lower end within that revenue bucket. The company also clarified that fourth-quarter events revenue existed and was similar to the third quarter, but was “de minimis” due to seasonality concentrated in the first half of the year.
Despite the “precipitous” decline in digital asset prices, Farley said Bullish is seeing continued business growth and remains focused on expanding its regulated institutional footprint, scaling tokenization-related services, and building its indices and insights offerings in 2026.
About Bullish (NYSE:BLSH)
Bullish (NYSE: BLSH) is a company that develops and operates digital asset market infrastructure, including a cryptocurrency trading platform and related technology services. The firm’s stated activities focus on providing exchange services, market structure and trading technology designed to support the listing, execution and clearing of digital assets. Bullish positions itself as a bridge between traditional capital markets practices and the evolving cryptocurrency ecosystem.
The business was announced in connection with Block.one, the software developer known for its work on the EOS blockchain, and was formed with the intent of creating a regulated, institutional-grade marketplace for digital assets.
