"Our quest to become a public company is taking longer than expected, but we respect the SEC’s ongoing work to lay new digital asset frameworks and clarify industry-specific disclosure and accounting complexities," said Bullish Chairman and CEO Brendan Blumer in a statement, referring to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Bullish had planned to go public via a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Far Peak Acquisition (FPAC).

The most recent amendment to the two firms' original July 2021 merger agreement allowed for the right to terminate the deal if it couldn't be completed by the end of 2022.

Among investors in Bullish are Peter Thiel and hedge fund giants Alan Howard and Louis Bacon.

It's the latest in a long line of canceled mergers in the formerly red-hot SPAC arena. Earlier this month stablecoin issuer Circle terminated its merger agreement with Concord Acquisition.

The Bullish platform handled $857 million in average daily volume in June of this year, according to its most recent investor update.

Bullish Peter Thiel SPAC Crypto Exchange Mergers

Stephen Alpher

Stephen is CoinDesk's managing editor for Markets. He previously served as managing editor at Seeking Alpha. A native of suburban Washington, D.C., Stephen went to the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, majoring in finance. He holds BTC above CoinDesk’s disclosure threshold of $1,000.