Bullish Stock Is Falling. What Analysts Say About the Latest Crypto IPO.

Bullish, an institutional crypto exchange that also operates the news site CoinDesk, popped in an initial public offering last month. (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

Shares of Bullish were falling Monday after several investment banks released their first research notes on the crypto company.

Bullish, an institutional crypto exchange that also operates the news site CoinDesk, popped in an initial public offering last month. Shares soared more than 80% during the stock’s debut Aug. 12 on the New York Stock Exchange, though they since have given back more than half of those gains.

The stock was falling 4.7% to $49.90 on Monday, the first session after the 25-day quiet period when IPO underwriters are barred from publishing research on new offering.

The verdict? Bullish is well-positioned to benefit from growth in crypto trading over the next few years, but the current valuation may already be well-balanced.

Bullish is “an institutional play on crypto,” wrote Brett Knoblauch of Cantor Fitzgerald in a research note Monday. By combining a trading business with the indices and data business provided by CoinDesk, Bullish is the “crypto-equivalent” of Intercontinental Exchange or Nasdaq , as he put it.

The company has a global order book, the deepest liquidity in the industry, and is the most regulated exchange, Cantor Fitzgerald argued. This combination gives it an advantage when competing for institutional clients as crypto adoption increases.

Cantor Fitzgerald issued an Overweight rating for Bullish stock, though the firm’s $56 price target would represent a somewhat modest 9.8% gain from the stock’s close on Friday.

The stock’s elevated valuation is what had analysts at Oppenheimer & Co issue a Perform rating on the shares, with no price target. The firm projects increased institutional adoption and improved regulatory clarity around crypto over the next few years, which should support mid-teens compound annualized revenue growth. Oppenheimer also expects margins to expand to 41% in 2027 from 24% last year.

“That said, the 36% rise in shares since its IPO and valuation of 50x
2026E EBITDA keep us on the sidelines,” wrote the Oppenheimer team.

That reasoning mirrored many firms’ conclusions last month about Figma , another IPO that rocketed out of the gates in the summer and left analysts wary about buying at a too-high price.

Of the eight analysts polled by FactSet on Bullish, six issued Hold or equivalent ratings and just two—Cantor Fitzgerald and Canaccord Genuity —counseled investors to buy the stock. The average price target is $54.14.

Write to Nate Wolf at nate.wolf@barrons.com