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SoftBank to Invest $75M in Peter Thiel-Backed Crypto Exchange Bullish
SB Northstar, an investment arm of Tokyo-based SoftBank, has agreed to invest $75 million in Block.one’s new subsidiary crypto exchange, Bullish.
According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, SoftBank will purchase 7.5 million shares for $10 each at the time of Bullish’s upcoming special purpose acquisition (SPAC) deal. Bullish has been valued at $9 billion.
Bullish, which is backed by billionaire investor Peter Thiel and crypto investment firms like Galaxy Digital, is on track to go public by the end of 2021 via a SPAC merger with Thomas Farley’s Far Peak Acquisition Corp . Farley, a former president of the New York Stock Exchange, will become Bullish’s CEO. Block.one CEO Brendan Blumer will serve as chairman.
Some in the crypto sphere have raised eyebrows at the newly launched Bullish’s plans to go public, suggesting that it is part of an effort to raise the value of the Block.one-associated EOS blockchain. Others, including billionaire crypto investor Sam Bankman-Fried, suggest Bullish’s real aim is to be a MicroStrategy-esque stock proxy for crypto. MicroStrategy is a business software company that has invested heavily into bitcoin.
SoftBank unit to invest in crypto exchange Bullish amid SPAC moves
SB Northstar LP, a business unit of SoftBank, is set to invest in the operator of a yet-to-be-launched crypto exchange as well as the special-purpose acquisition vehicle through which it plans to go public.
Last week, Bullish unveiled its SPAC plans via a public filing, which could see the firm valued at as much as $9 billion. According to a new report from Bloomberg, the public documents highlight how SB Northstar will buy 7.5 million Bullish shares when the SPAC becomes effective. The documents also indicate that SB Northstar is buying 3 million Private Placement Warrants in connection with the SPAC, dubbed Far Peak Acquisition Corp.
As previously reported, the SPAC deal is set to feature $300 million in committed investment from EFM Asset Management as well as BlackRock and Galaxy Digital. Former New York Stock Exchange president Tom Farley will serve as Bullish’s chief executive officer.
The SoftBank angle of the deal reflects the institutional interest in Bullish, which is aiming to capture design approaches from both the traditional exchange space as well as the world of decentralized finance or DeFi, according to an investor pitch deck released at the time.
“Bullish is really tipping our hat to the successful use of liquidity pools and automated market makers, and it’s combining them with a CeFi market structure," Farley said during a recent appearance on The Scoop podcast.