The investment reflects Bullish’s belief in tokenization and its potential to enable innovative on-chain capital markets
Cayman Islands, September 22, 2025 – Bullish (NYSE: BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services, today announced a $4 million investment into USD.AI, the on-chain platform for AI infrastructure financing. The venture investment is Bullish’s first since completing its initial public offering in August.
USD.AI aims to address growing demand for accessible AI infrastructure financing. While global AI infrastructure spending is projected to exceed $6 trillion by 2030, financing has become a critical bottleneck for companies outside of hyperscale incumbents. USD.AI has created a synthetic dollar for scaling AI infrastructure, addressing this accessibility gap with a programmatic model for standardized, hardware-backed loans that combines DeFi composability with institutional-grade risk management.
The investment was made by Bullish Capital, which provides strategic capital, industry expertise, and an extensive network of resources to support initiatives that connect conventional finance with the revolutionary possibilities of the digital economy. The investment reflects Bullish’s belief in the utility of stablecoins and tokenization, which are central to USD.AI’s programmable finance platform. In August, Bullish received $1.15 billion of its IPO proceeds in stablecoins.
“Tokenization is at the heart of the next era of capital markets,”said David Bonanno, CFO of Bullish. “USD.AI is extending this movement into one of the most capital-intensive industries today: artificial intelligence. We are excited to make this first step in support of their mission of expanding the tokenization economy into new frontiers by giving AI builders streamlined access to the capital they need to grow.”
“Scaling AI infrastructure requires fast, reliable, and transparent access to capital,” saidDavid Choi, CEO and Co-Founder of USD.AI. “USD.AI enables operators to access capital more efficiently while giving investors direct exposure to sustainable, real-world yield. Bullish’s investment accelerates our ability to financially support and address the next wave of AI demand.”
With $250M in private beta deposits already secured and loan origination accelerating, USD.AI is well-positioned to scale its innovative financing model. Bullish’s investment will help the company expand access to this new category of yield-bearing, hardware-backed synthetic dollar lending across the AI infrastructure market. Learn more about USD.AI here.
Bullish is an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. These include: Bullish Exchange – a regulated and institutionally focused digital assets spot and derivatives exchange, integrating a high-performance central limit order book matching engine with automated market making to provide deep and predictable liquidity. Bullish Exchange is regulated in the United States, Germany, Hong Kong, and Gibraltar. CoinDesk Indices – a collection of tradable proprietary and single-asset benchmarks and indices that track the performance of digital assets for global institutions in the digital assets and traditional finance industries. CoinDesk Data – a broad suite of digital assets market data and analytics, providing real-time insights into prices, trends, and market dynamics. CoinDesk Insights – a digital asset media and events provider and operator of coindesk.com, a digital media platform that covers news and insights about digital assets, the underlying markets, policy, and blockchain technology. For more information on Bullish, please visit bullish.com and follow LinkedIn and X.
About USD.AI
Through its USDai and sUSDai dollar offerings, USD.AI is the synthetic dollar scaling AI infrastructure, providing asset-backed loans to the long tail of AI builders. Using GPU hardware as collateral, USD.AI’s programmatic lending platform delivers fast, transparent, and scalable financing without the complexity of traditional credit markets. By combining DeFi principles with institutional-grade risk management, USD.AI enables AI companies of all sizes to access the capital they need to deploy and expand compute capacity. The protocol was developed by Permian Labs, Inc, a Delaware corporation.
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Forward-Looking Statements
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