Bullish (BLSH), a leading institutionally-focused crypto trading platform, has officially launched spot crypto trading services in the United States, making its debut across 20 states. This major move follows Bullish’s successful acquisition of a BitLicense and money transmission license from New York’s financial regulator, one of the most challenging licenses to obtain for crypto businesses.

With approval from the New York State Department of Financial Services, Bullish now brings its trading platform to key markets including California, Florida, Arizona, Washington, D.C., and of course, New York. The platform went live with its first trades completed by institutional clients such as BitGo and Nonco.

Since its international launch in late 2021, Bullish has managed approximately $1.5 trillion in trading volume, ranking it among the top 10 crypto exchanges by Bitcoin and Ether trading volume. Its trading model uniquely blends a central limit order book with a deterministic automated market maker, providing deep liquidity and efficient execution for users.

Bullish is positioning itself to attract a broad spectrum of institutional participants—hedge funds, proprietary trading firms, market makers, fintech companies, and neobanks. To meet the needs of this audience, Bullish is offering 0% maker fees for institutional accounts and 0% trading fees to advanced individual traders in the states where it’s currently available.

The list of states Bullish now serves includes Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Puerto Rico, alongside the initial markets.

Despite the excitement around the U.S. launch, Bullish (BLSH) shares experienced a 4.4% drop during Wednesday’s trading session but remain up over 60% since the company’s IPO in August. Bullish’s market capitalization now stands at around $9 billion, highlighting significant investor interest in its expanding footprint within the digital asset sector.