This 39-year-old just became a billionaire after stunning Wall Street debut

Six years after raising $US4.2 billion ($6.4 billion) in the most lucrative sale of crypto tokens to date, digital currency entrepreneurs Brendan Blumer and Kokuei Yuan are back for another public offering.

The two own a combined majority stake in crypto exchange Bullish, which raised $US1.1 billion at a $US5.4 billion valuation in an IPO on Wednesday, bringing their holdings to more than $US2 billion each. The company’s shares climbed 84 per cent in its debut to close at $US68 in New York after earlier soaring as much as 219 per cent.

Co-founder and board member Blumer, 39, is the largest individual shareholder with a 30.1 per cent stake worth $US2.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He’s granted call options to third parties on about 5 per cent of his holdings, which could reduce the value of his position depending on the details of the arrangements, which weren’t disclosed in company filings.

Yuan, who serves on Bullish’s board, owns a 26.7 per cent stake worth $US2.5 billion.

A spokesperson for the Cayman Islands-based company, which is also the owner of media outlet CoinDesk, didn’t respond to a request for comment on the pair’s net worth.

Bullish is the latest in a series of crypto-related IPOs this year that have generated 10-figure windfalls for company insiders. Stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group jumped 168 per cent on its first trading day in June and has since added to those gains, bringing co-founder Jeremy Allaire’s net worth to $US3.3 billion, according to Bloomberg’s wealth index. Brokerage app Webull, which offers predictions bets on crypto prices and has said it plans to reintroduce crypto trading to its platform for US users this quarter, gained more than 500 per cent in its first two days of trading, minting billion-dollar fortunes for both its co-founders.

Early backing

Bullish was launched in 2021 with the backing of Block.one, another crypto business Blumer co-founded with early support from billionaire investors including Thiel and Mike Novogratz. Block.one raised $US4.2 billion in 2018 from selling its proprietary tokens — called EOS — in what remains the largest initial coin offering to date. A subsequent stock buyback valued the firm at about $US2.3 billion and delivered seed-stage investors returns of more than 6,500 per cent.

Soon after Block.one’s initial coin offering, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged the company with selling unregistered securities. The parties reached a settlement in September 2019 in which Block.one agreed to pay a $US24 million penalty without admitting or denying any wrongdoing, the regulatory agency said in a statement.

The EOS token currently trades at about US57¢, down from its high of $US18.87 at the time of the 2018 offering, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

When Block.one launched Bullish, it initially seeded it with about $US10 billion in assets, including 164,000 Bitcoin. After operating it as a subsidiary, Block.one eventually reduced its equity stake to below 50 per cent in July 2024.

Bullish has since become a major crypto exchange, handling $US1.25 trillion in total transactions through March 31, according to a regulatory filing. It offers spot, margin and derivatives trading, with the latter two products offered only to non-US investors. Its chief executive officer is Tom Farley, 49, former president of the New York Stock Exchange, who owns a stake worth $US437 million, according to Bloomberg’s wealth index.

In November 2023, Bullish acquired CoinDesk, a provider of crypto news and data, from Barry Silbert-backed Digital Currency Group in an all-cash transaction for $US72.6 million.

Bullish has sold off a significant portion of the seed investment it received from Block.one. It still held more than 24,000 Bitcoin worth in excess of $US1.7 billion as of March 31, according to a regulatory filing, as well as $US144 million in dollar-denominated stablecoins.

Global citizen

Blumer, who grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, moved to Hong Kong in 2005 and relinquished his US citizenship in 2020. Before getting involved with crypto, he started a business at age 15 selling in-game digital assets for online games including World of Warcraft. After selling that company, he started Okay.com, a Hong Kong-based property agency.

In a filing last month, Bullish disclosed that it had taken over from Blumer the purchase of a $US5 million luxury condo still under development in the Cayman Islands, intending to use the property as office space.

Earlier this year, Blumer purchased a villa on the Sardinian coast for about €170 million ($304 million), local publication I’Unione Sarda reported in March. The transaction is one of the largest residential deals in Italian history.

Kokuei Yuan, who early served as Block.one’s executive chairman, keeps a lower profile. He graduated from Tufts University with degrees in economics and studio art and previously worked as an investment banker at CLSA, according to a filing. He helped found Okay.com, the Hong Kong-based property firm, with Blumer.

Bloomberg

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