Bullish stock surges 12% despite $280M quarterly loss driven by Bitcoin writedown

Bullish, the Peter Thiel-backed digital asset exchange trading on the NYSE under ticker BLSH, posted a net loss of $280 million for the second quarter of 2026. Investors responded by sending shares up 11.7% to $27.50.

The loss, amounting to $1.78 per diluted share, stands in sharp contrast to the $108.3 million profit ($0.93 per share) the company reported in Q2 2025. But the headline number obscures what actually moved markets: Bullish posted $92.6 million in adjusted revenue and $29.5 million in adjusted EBITDA, metrics that strip out the noise of volatile crypto asset valuations.

A Bitcoin-sized hole in the balance sheet

The overwhelming majority of the loss, some $244.6 million, came from a markdown on Bitcoin holdings. Companies that hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets are required under current accounting rules to write down the asset when its price falls below purchase cost, but can’t mark it back up when it recovers.

Q2’s $280 million loss was actually a significant improvement over Q1 2026, when the company reported a net loss of $604.9 million.

From $70 to $27, and the market still cheered

Bullish made its NYSE debut in August 2025 at an initial price of $37 per share. On its first day of trading, shares surged to nearly $70, briefly pushing the company’s market cap above $10 billion.

The subsequent decline to $27.50 represents a roughly 60% drop from that first-day high. Total digital asset sales for the quarter hit $32.6 billion.

CEO Tom Farley pointed to growth prospects and the company’s planned acquisition of Equiniti as evidence that Bullish is building for scale.

The adjusted metrics game

Under generally accepted accounting principles, crypto assets are treated as indefinite-lived intangible assets. That means impairment charges hit the income statement when prices drop, but recoveries don’t get recognized until the asset is sold.

The FASB’s updated fair value accounting rules for crypto assets, which allow companies to recognize both gains and losses, are being adopted on varying timelines. How and when Bullish implements those updated standards could materially change how its financial statements read in future quarters.

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