作者 | Chandler_btc, Arkstream CapitalTL;DR 2026 年第一季度，加密货币交易所商品永续合约（黄金、白银、原油）的每周交易量从 $38.1M 飙升至 $25B，增长 65,463%。传统资产的代币化将成为未来 5-10 年加密货币的主要叙事，而 Pre-IPO 代币化只是加入这一浪潮的最新类别。 今年 4 月，三大交易所——Bitget、Gate 和 Binance (PreStocks)——几乎同时推出了与 SpaceX 相关的代币化产品。虽然合规结构不同，但本质是一样的：将原本只有超高净值人士才能进入的Pre-IPO市场拆成小块，卖给散户投资者。本文主要澄清两点：第一，传统Pre-IPO到底是什么；第二，传统Pre-IPO到底是什么？传统资产代币化将是未来5-10年加密货币的主要叙事 据统计，2026年第一季度，加密货币交易所商品永续合约（黄金、白银、原油）的周交易量从3810万美元飙升至25B美元，增幅达65,463%。币安推出后
1 月份 TradFi Perpetuals 板块，三个月内累计交易量超过 $153B，执行交易量超过 1.14 亿笔。其XAG（白银）合约日均交易量达到$1.31B，全球市场份额从0.2%跃升至4.9%（增长23.5倍）。最引人注目的时刻出现在2月下旬的伊朗冲突期间。当时，美国和以色列对伊朗的袭击发生在周末，传统期货、股票和外汇市场均休市。加密货币市场是全球唯一仍在交易的市场。在此期间，Hyperliquid 原油永续合约瞬间飙升 5%，Tether Gold XAUT 单日交易量超过 3 亿美元，Bitwise CIO 将其描述为“改变金融的周末”。股票
Author | Chandler_btc, Arkstream Capital
TL;DR
In Q1 2026, the weekly trading volume of commodity perpetual contracts (gold, silver, crude oil) on crypto exchanges surged from $38.1M to $25B, a 65,463% increase. Tokenization of traditional assets will be the main narrative in crypto over the next 5–10 years, and Pre-IPO tokenization is just the latest category to join this wave.
In April, three major exchanges — Bitget, Gate, and Binance (PreStocks) — almost simultaneously launched tokenized products related to SpaceX. While their compliance structures differ, the essence is the same: breaking up a Pre-IPO market that was previously only accessible to ultra-high-net-worth individuals into smaller pieces and selling them to retail investors.
This article mainly clarifies two things: first, what traditional Pre-IPO actually is; and second, how retail investors can participate.
Tokenization of Traditional Assets Will Be the Main Narrative for Crypto Over the Next 5–10 Years
According to statistics, in Q1 2026, the weekly trading volume of commodity perpetual contracts (gold, silver, crude oil) on crypto exchanges surged from $38.1M to $25B, an increase of 65,463%. After Binance launched its TradFi Perpetuals section in January, cumulative trading volume exceeded $153B within three months, with over 114 million trades executed. Its XAG (silver) contract reached an average daily trading volume of $1.31B, with global market share jumping from 0.2% to 4.9% (a 23.5x increase).
The most striking moment came in late February during the Iran conflict. At that time, strikes by the United States and Israel on Iran occurred over the weekend, when traditional futures, equities, and FX markets were all closed. The crypto market was the only market still trading globally. During that period, Hyperliquid crude oil perpetuals spiked 5% instantly, Tether Gold XAUT recorded over $300M in single-day trading volume, and Bitwise CIO described it as “the weekend that changed finance.”
U.S. equities, precious metals, crude oil, and foreign exchange — assets that were historically only traded during weekday market hours — are now being tokenized, brought on-chain, and provided with 24/7 global liquidity. Pre-IPO tokenization is simply the latest category to join this wave.
Source: BitMEX Research
What Exactly Is Pre-IPO
The Pre-IPO secondary market (secondary share trading) has existed for more than a decade. In 2024, global trading volume reached $160B, with the U.S. direct secondary market alone accounting for . Buyers are primarily family offices, sovereign wealth funds, institutional investors, and high-net-worth individuals, with typical deal sizes starting at $10M and above, effectively keeping retail investors out.
The vast majority of transactions are conducted through SPVs (Special Purpose Vehicles). Existing shareholders place their shares into a specially created shell company, which then sells its own units to new buyers. Buyers receive shares of the SPV and indirectly hold equity in the underlying company. The reason is that secondary transactions rarely allow unfamiliar investors to be added directly to the cap table, as this would trigger other shareholders’ ROFR (Right of First Refusal), making the process cumbersome and potentially blocked by existing shareholders. As a result, what buyers ultimately acquire are LP interests or units in the SPV, representing indirect ownership of the underlying shares.
Because trading volume in the secondary market is highly concentrated in a small number of top-tier names, companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic consistently account for 30–40% of total volume. Along with leading unicorns such as ByteDance, Stripe, Databricks, and xAI, the top 15 companies together represent approximately 83% of the entire market’s trading volume. (This level of concentration is also why, even when Bitget and Gate only launched tokenized SpaceX products, a single offering could easily be oversubscribed by hundreds of millions — supply for top-tier Pre-IPO assets has always been scarce, while demand is highly concentrated.)
Most of these assets are U.S.-based, so the primary regulatory barrier is CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States). It restricts foreign capital from investing in sensitive U.S. sectors such as AI, semiconductors, and defense. Investors from certain countries face strict scrutiny when attempting to buy assets like SpaceX or Anthropic. Therefore, sellers typically specify in advance that buyers from certain jurisdictions are not allowed — GPs will look through the SPV structure to verify whether the ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) is from restricted countries such as China, Russia, or Iran. While deeper layering makes verification more difficult, it is not foolproof. We have encountered cases where a Chinese UBO was identified within a two-layer SPV structure, resulting in the entire deal collapsing.
Sources：Caplight PitchBook, Augment
After a U.S. company goes public, there is a standard lock-up period: under SEC Rule 144 and underwriting agreements, early shareholders and employees are only allowed to sell their shares on the public market six months after the IPO. This rule applies to nearly all U.S. companies (Facebook, Coinbase, Reddit, Cerebras all follow a six-month period).
This is why the Pre-IPO tokens launched by Bitget and Gate require a six-month wait before redemption, but it does not affect pre-market trading.
Real Trading Details of Pre-IPO
Extremely High Ticket Size Threshold
Traditional Pre-IPO deals typically start at around $10M, and anything below $1M is rarely considered — not because there is no demand, but because fixed costs per deal (legal fees, KYC, SPV setup, distribution fees) cannot be reduced. Therefore, what exchanges are doing in this wave is a disruptive attempt that breaks class barriers. In the past, retail investors (and even then, only advanced participants with access to U.S. brokerage accounts) could only participate after IPO. Now, although exchange offerings are slightly more expensive, they at least give ordinary participants a chance to get exposure.
Disorder in the Broker/FA Market
A cross-border Pre-IPO deal typically goes through multiple layers:
Underlying GP — Rep (seller representative) — primary broker — secondary broker — … — FA — end client
Each layer adds a 1–5% fee. A deal priced at a $500B valuation at the source may end up exceeding $600B by the time it reaches the actual buyer.
Taking SpaceX as an example, the real market price is around a $1.25T valuation plus a 3–11% access fee (varying by channel and layer). This means the final price is roughly $1.375T, excluding additional compliance costs from tokenization. Overall, the pricing offered by exchanges is relatively reasonable, most likely driven by user acquisition strategies.
Moreover, most block supply in the market is actually fake — identical allocations are listed repeatedly by multiple brokers, while less than 10% is genuinely executable. For example, with SpaceX, listings may appear at a $1.2T valuation on platforms, but deeper discussions often reveal them to be non-existent. Even large platforms and major intermediaries are filled with such fake listings.
Sources: A certain secondary share trading platform
If the transaction involves an LP Interest Swap, you also need to obtain GP consent — meaning approval from the GP of the underlying SPV for the transfer of LP interests. The GP has the right to reject the transfer. In practice, GPs are generally not receptive to such transfers — because onboarding new LPs, handling compliance, and introducing unfamiliar parties all create additional complexity. As a result, in many cases, informal payments are required to secure GP approval, adding another layer of cost.
Illiquidity Is the Biggest Pain Point of Pre-IPO Secondary Shares
Exiting mid-way is extremely difficult. You either wait for the company to go public (typically 3–7 years), and even then, you usually have to wait an additional six-month lock-up period after the IPO. Or you find a new buyer and go through the entire structured process again — which takes at least two to three weeks (at best), plus FA fees.
Each transfer is effectively a separate OTC transaction, requiring a full redo of legal documentation, KYC/AML/UBO verification, and GP approval. This is why Pre-IPO assets have long been priced as illiquid assets.
How Retail Investors Can Participate in This Wave of Pre-IPO
It can be anticipated that the market will see a series of tokenized secondary share products going forward. At their core, they all follow the same model: platforms acquire real secondary shares from the traditional Pre-IPO market, then wrap them into tokens and break them into smaller pieces to sell to retail investors.
For retail investors, this provides the opportunity to enter before a company goes public and ride the natural step-by-step increase in valuation across funding rounds.
Top-tier assets typically see monotonically increasing valuations across funding rounds. SpaceX has grown from $74B in 2021 to over $1.4T today; OpenAI from $29B to $852B+; Anthropic from $4B to $800B+; and ByteDance from $75B to $600B+. Each new financing round pushes valuations higher, lifting the value of existing shareholders accordingly.
However, one must stay clear-headed: this is not risk-free. Historically, Stripe experienced a down round where its valuation dropped from $95B to $50B; TrueLayer declined by 30%; Cybereason fell by over 90%; and WeWork ultimately went bankrupt after once reaching a $49B valuation. In 2023 alone, 128 unicorns saw valuation declines globally, and 42 fell out of unicorn status altogether.
Therefore, the key to participating in Pre-IPO is selecting the right asset, not timing the market. The goal is to capture long-term gains driven by the company’s natural valuation growth — rather than rushing in at launch and speculating on short-term sentiment-driven price swings. Many crypto users treat Pre-IPO like an IDO, but these are fundamentally different
logics. To summarize the participation framework:
1. Do you have long-term conviction in the asset? Are SpaceX, OpenAI, or Anthropic worth their post-IPO valuation levels? Are you willing to hold until the next funding round or after the IPO?
2. Is the product you choose structurally safe? Who is the issuer? Where is the downside protection? If something goes wrong, who do you have recourse against?
The Future RWA Landscape Over the Next 3 Years
Pre-IPO tokenization is still at a very early stage. Supply of top-tier assets remains scarce, demand is highly concentrated, and valuations continue to trend upward over the long term. In the coming months, tokenized products for leading names such as OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Stripe, ByteDance, and Kimi will continue to emerge.
This, however, is only a small branch of the broader tokenization trend. The main structure can already be clearly outlined in four layers:
- Stablecoin issuers: providing on-chain USD liquidity and settlement entry points；
- Public blockchain networks: hosting asset issuance and circulation；
- Trading and distribution platforms: CEXs and DEXs. Additionally, there is a potential new player — Launchpad / IDO platforms (such as Buidlpad) — which already possess full-stack capabilities for KYC, issuance, subscription, and distribution of new assets. In the past, they issued crypto tokens; today, they can just as easily issue Pre-IPO tokens；
- Asset issuance service providers: companies that bring various types of assets on-chain.
It is foreseeable that tokenization as a core narrative will not only produce a wave of unicorns, but also has the potential to give rise to trillion-dollar infrastructure and a group of hundred-billion-dollar platform players.
This is just the beginning.
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