Bullish

The BaFin authorized Bullish Europe GmbH on 4 September 2025 under Article 63 of the MiCA regulation. The authorization covers custody and administration of crypto-assets for clients, the exchange of crypto-assets for funds or for other crypto-assets, the execution of orders for clients and transfer services.

The interim MiCA register of ESMA lists passports for all 29 other countries of the European Economic Area. Bullish Europe announced the authorization on 5 September 2025, and the firm stays under the supervision of BaFin wherever it serves clients in the EEA.

On 20 December 2024 BaFin granted the German business licenses for crypto custody, proprietary trading and principal brokerage, which Bullish announced from Frankfurt on 8 January 2025. With these licenses Bullish Europe worked under the grandfathering rules of the MiCA transitional period until the new authorization replaced them.

Marco Bodewein leads Bullish Europe GmbH as its managing director in Frankfurt. Marco Bodewein was previously chief executive of Bitcoin Group SE and a member of the management board of futurum bank AG, and the Frankfurt crypto trading house tradias was one of the first clients to trade through the German entity.

Bullish Exchange matches orders in a central limit order book and adds an automated market maker that places liquidity into the same book. The group holds exchange licenses in the United States, Germany, Hong Kong and Gibraltar and directs its products at banks, brokers, trading firms and asset managers.

The information services carry the CoinDesk brand: CoinDesk Indices calculates crypto benchmarks, CoinDesk Data sells market data, and CoinDesk Insights covers research and media. Index providers of this kind matter to the issuers of crypto ETPs, whose products track such benchmarks.

The Bullish crypto exchange is a venue for professional traders who connect through APIs and trade spot pairs and derivatives in one order book. In Europe these clients hold the assets they trade on the venue in the custody of Bullish Europe, which the MiCA authorization covers.

Bullish Europe GmbH is the German subsidiary that holds the MiCA authorization and has its seat in Frankfurt am Main. The managing director Marco Bodewein runs it, and BaFin supervises it as a crypto-asset service provider for the whole European Economic Area.

Bullish went public in August 2025 and priced its IPO at 37 dollars per share, raising 1.1 billion dollars from 30 million shares. The shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker BLSH.

A MiCA authorization from one member state lets a firm offer its services in other EEA countries after a notification to their supervisors. For Bullish Europe the register lists 29 such countries, and the CASP license under MiCA sets the rules for this passport.

News about the exchange often appears next to CoinDesk headlines because Bullish owns the publisher. CoinDesk is the information services arm of the group, and the exchange with its European custody business is the trading arm.