Is Bullish (BLSH) a Buy Before Earnings? Q2 Volume Is Already Public

TL;DR

• No. Not into this print. Bullish publishes its trading volume every month, so the number that drives Q2 revenue has been public since July 6. The call at 8:30am ET cannot deliver a volume surprise, because there is no volume left to surprise anyone with.
• Q2 total trading volume was $130.7 billion, down 33% sequentially. It reconciles exactly against the monthly releases: $46.9bn in April, $32.9bn in May, $50.9bn in June. Consensus revenue of about $88 million already reflects it.
• July printed $30.7 billion, against $50.9bn in June and $53.8bn in July 2025. That is a 43% year-over-year decline, and it is a Q3 number, which is the part of Thursday that is still unwritten.
• The Equiniti consideration is a fixed 61.1 million shares, struck at a $38.48 30-day VWAP for about $2.35bn. At Wednesday's $24.63 close those shares are worth $1.50bn, so the announced $4.2bn deal is currently a $3.35bn deal.
• Ignore the GAAP EPS line entirely. Q1's $(3.85) per share sat alongside $20.3m of adjusted net income. Estimates are struck on the adjusted number and the tape prints the GAAP one.

The Board

Four monthly releases, summing to the quarter the market already knows.

Is Bullish a Buy Before Earnings?

No. The quarter reporting on Thursday has already been disclosed in pieces.

Bullish releases monthly metrics, and volume is what a crypto exchange sells. April, May and June came out one at a time, and they add to $130.7 billion, which is the figure the company itself gave for the quarter. Revenue consensus near $88 million is roughly Q1's $92.8m adjusted revenue marked down for a smaller quarter. So the revenue line arrives pre-solved.

That is unusual, and it changes what the event is worth. Most earnings reactions are paid for by the gap between a guess and a result. Here the gap is close to zero on the biggest driver, which leaves the reaction to whatever Tom Farley says about Equiniti and to a GAAP number nobody should trade.

The call shares its minute with July PPI and jobless claims at 8:30am, which is its own small problem: a small-cap crypto name holding a call into a macro print gets the tape's attention second. Thursday's full slate sits on the earnings calendar.

The GAAP Line Is Going to Look Awful, and It Won't Mean Much

Q1 is the template. Bullish reported a net loss of $(604.9) million, or $(3.85) per diluted share, against $(348.6)m a year earlier. In the same release: adjusted revenue of $92.8m, adjusted EBITDA of $35.1m and adjusted net income of $20.3m, all up sharply on Q1 2025's $62.4m, $13.2m and $2.1m.

The gap is remeasurement of the digital assets Bullish holds on its own balance sheet. The company excludes it because, in its words, it does not align with an intention to avoid directional positions.

Watch what that does to the scoreboard. On roughly 151.7 million shares, $20.3m of adjusted net income is about $0.13 a share, which is a hair above the $0.12 the sell side had. Aggregators recorded Q1 as a miss of more than 3,000% by comparing an adjusted estimate against a GAAP print. I would not put weight on any Q2 EPS consensus for this name: I have seen $1.13 and $0.09 quoted for the same quarter, and $1.13 would require about $170m of net income on $88m of revenue. It cannot be right.

What Is Actually Unknown on Thursday

Three things, and only one of them is a number.

July. Total volume of $30.7 billion, versus $50.9bn in June and $53.8bn in July 2025. Spot was $29.1bn of it, with Bitcoin at $16.7bn and stablecoins at $7.3bn. Options contributed $0.2bn and perpetual futures $1.5bn, so derivatives ran under 6% of the total, which sits awkwardly next to the options push management highlighted in Q1. Average spread widened to 2.62 bps from 1.52 bps a year ago. Thin books and wide spreads are what a volume drought looks like from the inside.

Equiniti. Announced May 5, closing expected January 2027: $1.85bn of assumed debt plus 61.1 million new shares. Bullish guides to roughly 222 million fully diluted shares afterwards, handing Siris and rollover holders about 27.5%. Against 151.7m shares today, that is a 40% increase in the count. The company is also assuming debt worth half its own $3.74bn market capitalisation. Pro forma, management points at about $1.3bn of adjusted revenue and $500m+ of adjusted EBITDA less capex for 2026E, which would make the transfer agent the larger business.

The mark. Because the share count is fixed rather than the value, every dollar the stock loses comes out of the sellers' consideration, not out of Bullish's share count. The deal got cheaper. Whether it still closes on those terms is the question, and management will be asked.

The Anniversary Nobody Will Mention

Bullish listed on August 13, 2025. It priced at $37, above a $32-33 range, sold 30 million shares, raised $1.1 billion, opened at $90 and traded as high as $102 before closing its first day somewhere near $68 to $70, depending on which outlet you read. The 52-week high is $118.00.

Wednesday's close was $24.63. That is 79% below the high, 33% below the IPO price, and about 20% above the $20.55 low set inside the last year. The SpaceX listing has its own version of this, and SK Hynix's Nasdaq debut is the counterexample where the business grew into the price.

Where I'd Change My Mind

I want this at a lower price or after a Q3 datapoint, and preferably both. August volume publishes in early September and industry-wide spot volumes have run near $15 billion a day this month, the weakest of 2026 and down roughly 70% from January, which is the backdrop for Bitcoin's slide. If August lands near July's run rate, Q3 comes in around $90bn and the adjusted profit that makes the bull case gets thin.

The bull case is real and it is not about crypto volumes at all: Equiniti brings 3,000 issuer clients and $500bn of annual payments processing, and a combined company earning most of its revenue from share registry work deserves a different multiple than an exchange levered to Bitcoin turnover. That is a January 2027 story. Sell-side consensus sits near $44.70 on a 12-month horizon, high $55, low $27, which prices the deal closing and working.

Five months of crypto beta stand between here and there. I would rather buy the combined company once it exists than pay for the wait.

The One-Line Read

The quarter is already public, the EPS line is noise, and the only fresh number lands in September. Nothing about Thursday is worth paying for.