Bullish (BLSH) agreed to acquire transfer agent and shareholder services company Equiniti in a $4.25 billion deal that would add a centerpiece of traditional market infrastructure to its digital asset platform, expanding its push into tokenized securities.
The transaction gives Bullish, CoinDesk’s parent company, a regulated transfer agent, a role required for public companies, alongside its existing tokenization, trading and market infrastructure capabilities.
Equiniti maintains records for more than 2,500 companies and 20 million shareholders and processes approximately $500 billion in annual payments, effectively acting as a system of record for share ownership.
Combined, the companies aim to offer an end-to-end platform covering token design, issuance, compliance, registration and secondary trading, addressing what Bullish sees as a key gap in blockchain-based capital markets: the lack of a transfer agent built for tokenized assets.
“Tokenization is a once-in-a-generation shift in the way capital markets operate, the infrastructure trend that will define the next 25 years,” Bullish CEO Tom Farley said in the statement.
“Broad adoption on an institutional scale requires three things: end-to-end tokenization services, a single, unified ledger, and issuer relationships at scale. This combination delivers all three and I believe uniquely positions us to lead the transition to tokenized securities,” he added.
The deal comes as traditional financial services providers continue to push securities tokenization. More recently, BlackRock-backed Securitize and Computershare said they plan to bring parts of the $70 trillion U.S. stock market onto the chain through tokenized stocks, a move that brings traditional infrastructure closer to the blockchain rails.
Wave of mergers and acquisitions
Bullish’s acquisition of Equiniti also comes amid a broader wave of consolidation sweeping cryptocurrencies, as companies rush to build a comprehensive financial infrastructure.
After a lull in 2022-2023, M&A rebounded sharply in 2025, with more than 260 deals totaling around $8.6 billion, according to Pitchbook data. The amount is about four times that of the previous year, driven by clearer regulation and renewed institutional interest.
Companies are increasingly using acquisitions to fill capacity gaps in areas such as custody, payments, tokenization and derivatives, while larger players absorb smaller companies to scale distribution and fulfillment. High-profile transactions, from Kraken’s move into regulated derivatives to MoonPay’s push into payments infrastructure, underscore a shift away from speculative betting toward vertical integration and durable revenue models, a trend that is expected to continue through 2026.
The deal positions Bullish, which went public last year, to connect traditional equity infrastructure with blockchain rails, enabling features such as real-time cap table visibility, automated corporate actions and faster settlement, while supporting liquidity in tokenized equities, particularly for non-U.S. investors.
At $4.25 billion, the Equiniti acquisition would rank among the largest crypto-linked deals in history, surpassing Coinbase’s $2.9 billion purchase of Deribit and Kraken’s $1.5 billion NinjaTrader deal. The size underscores how cryptocurrency mergers and acquisitions have gone beyond buying and selling exchanges and have become a land grab for regulated financial infrastructure.
Bullish’s last acquisition before the Equiniti deal was its 2023 purchase of CoinDesk from Digital Currency Group, marking its entry into index, data and media services alongside its trading business. In 2024, it also acquired data provider CCData, a UK-regulated benchmark administrator and a leading provider of digital asset data and index solutions.
The Equiniti acquisition is expected to close in early 2027, pending regulatory approvals.
Goldman Sachs served as financial advisor to Bullish, while Evercore and FT Partners advised Siris Capital, a founding investor in Equiniti since 2021.
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