Crypto Firm Bullish Hires Former NYSE President Stacey Cunningham

Stacey Cunningham, the first female president of the New York Stock Exchange, has joined the crypto exchange operator Bullish as its president. The appointment reunites her with CEO Tom Farley, whom she succeeded at the NYSE in 2018.

Cunningham joins Bullish just six months after the company agreed to pay $4.2 billion for Equiniti, a transfer agent that serves nearly 3,000 companies and more than 20 million shareholders. The acquisition is expected to close in January, pending regulatory approvals.

Farley stated that Cunningham would help build new services for market participants, highlighting her decades of relationships with issuers. He praised her leadership, saying, "I've seen firsthand the impact of her leadership."

Cunningham led the NYSE Group until January 2022, becoming the first woman to hold the top job at the exchange. Before her tenure there, she held senior roles at Nasdaq and served as an operating partner at private equity firm Advent.

The company noted that she also serves on the board of Cloudflare and has been an adviser to Uniswap Labs. Her appointment comes as traditional exchanges and crypto platforms race to integrate tokenized shares, digital versions of stock recorded on a blockchain.

Infrastructure and Tokenized Shares

Public markets rely on trusted infrastructure, and Cunningham emphasized that there is an enormous opportunity to make that infrastructure more efficient, connected, and accessible. Her role at Bullish will likely focus on bridging the gap between traditional finance and blockchain technology.

Bullish, the NYSE, and Nasdaq have reached different stages in developing tokenized share venues. The NYSE announced in January that it was building a round-the-clock tokenized venue, while Nasdaq secured approval from the SEC in March to allow tokenized trading.

Bullish received approval from the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission in June and began trading its own tokenized shares in August. The company listed on the NYSE in August 2025 at $37 a share, but trading revenue remains a smaller portion of its total income.

In the second quarter, subscription, services, and other revenue reached $62.7 million, while adjusted transaction revenue was $29.9 million. This highlights the company's broader business model beyond trading activity.

Equiniti appears on both sides of the tokenized shares ecosystem. The NYSE named it on November 2 as one of six transfer agents signed up for its planned tokenized venue, and Cunningham still sits on the NYSE board, according to the Bullish release.