When SpaceX goes public on June 12, the shares will be priced at $135 each. Institutional investors, private banking clients, and the handful of retail brokerages with pre-IPO allocations will buy at that price. Everyone else will buy on the secondary market, where demand-driven markups mean the first public trade could open 30% to 50% higher than the offering price.
That’s how IPOs have always worked. The insiders get the price. Everyone else pays the premium.
Bybit just changed the rules.
The world’s second-largest crypto exchange launched IPO Express on June 7, offering eligible retail investors the ability to subscribe to tokenised SpaceX shares at the $135 IPO price through its xStocks platform. No brokerage account. No relationship with an investment bank. No minimum net worth requirement. Just a Bybit account and the desire to own a piece of Elon Musk’s rocket company at the same price Goldman Sachs is paying.
Registration runs from June 7 to June 11. Allocations are finalised between June 11 and June 12. Tokenised shares begin trading on Bybit’s spot market on June 12, the same day SpaceX starts trading on the Nasdaq.
Bybit is the second crypto exchange to offer this after Kraken opened SpaceX IPO subscriptions to clients in over 110 countries on June 5. Both route the offering through xStocks, the tokenisation framework built by Kraken’s parent company Payward. The race between crypto exchanges to democratise IPO access has gone from zero to two participants in 72 hours.
How This Is Different From Everything That Came Before
Crypto exchanges have been dabbling in equity-adjacent products for months. Hyperliquid offers SpaceX pre-IPO perpetual futures. Binance launched 7,000 US stocks and tokenised bStocks on BNB Chain. Bitget and Gate offer pre-IPO derivatives contracts on various private companies.
None of those products are the same as what Bybit and Kraken are doing. The distinction matters.
Pre-IPO perpetual futures let you bet on a company’s valuation. You don’t own shares. You hold a derivatives contract that tracks an estimated price. When the company goes public, the contract settles against the actual IPO price. You’re speculating on the outcome, not participating in the offering.
Binance’s stock trading gives you access to 7,000 equities after they’re already public. You can buy Apple, Tesla, or Nvidia on Binance. But you buy at the secondary market price, not the offering price. For an IPO, that difference can be 30% to 50% on the first day.
What Bybit’s IPO Express offers is different from both. Users subscribe to tokenised representations of actual publicly traded equities at the IPO price before the stock begins trading. The tokens are issued through xStocks’ regulated blockchain infrastructure and are pegged 1:1 to the real shares. When SpaceX opens for trading on June 12, the tokenised shares on Bybit represent the same economic exposure as shares purchased through a Wall Street brokerage.
Emily Bao, Bybit’s Head of Spot, put the significance directly. “For decades, the most attractive opportunities in capital markets were available only to institutional investors and those with the right connections. Thanks to our partnership with xStocks, Bybit clients worldwide can now invest directly in US company IPOs alongside institutional investors, on equal footing.”
The SpaceX Numbers Are Staggering
SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 per share across 555.6 million shares, aiming to raise approximately $75 billion at a valuation of $1.75 trillion. That makes it the largest IPO in history by a wide margin, dwarfing Saudi Aramco’s $29.4 billion offering in 2019.
Investor demand has already reached approximately $150 billion, roughly double the amount SpaceX is seeking to raise. That level of oversubscription means most investors who want shares won’t get a full allocation. The demand-supply imbalance virtually guarantees a significant first-day premium when trading begins.
For retail investors accessing the offering through Bybit or Kraken at $135, that oversubscription works in their favour. They’re buying at the fixed offering price while knowing that secondary market demand will likely push the price higher once trading opens. The ability to participate at IPO pricing transforms a crypto exchange account into something more valuable than many traditional brokerage relationships.
SpaceX’s roadshow began last week and will continue through the June 12 listing. The company operates the Starship launch system, the Starlink satellite internet constellation, and recently attracted headlines when its CEO confirmed the company holds 18,712 BTC worth over $1 billion on its balance sheet. For crypto investors, owning a piece of SpaceX means owning indirect exposure to both the space economy and corporate Bitcoin holdings.
What Tokenised IPO Shares Actually Give You
The tokenised SpaceX shares on Bybit aren’t derivatives, options, or betting contracts. They’re blockchain-based representations of actual equity, issued through a regulated framework.
Holders receive the economic benefits of share ownership including price exposure and dividend rights (if applicable). The tokens trade 24/7 on Bybit’s spot market, meaning SpaceX shares can be bought and sold on weekends and outside US market hours. DeFi composability means the tokens could potentially be used as collateral in lending protocols or integrated into other on-chain financial applications.
The 24/7 trading is a meaningful advantage over traditional markets. When news breaks about SpaceX on a Saturday night, Bybit holders can trade on it immediately. Traditional shareholders have to wait until Monday morning when the Nasdaq opens. In a market as fast-moving as SpaceX’s, that timing advantage has real economic value.
Bybit users don’t need to open or maintain a traditional brokerage account. They don’t need to wire funds to a US-based financial institution. They don’t need to navigate the compliance requirements that international investors typically face when buying US equities through conventional channels. The crypto exchange already has their KYC. The blockchain handles the settlement.
The IPO Landscape Crypto Is Targeting
SpaceX is the first offering. It won’t be the last.
Wall Street analysts have described 2026 as the strongest IPO pipeline in years. SpaceX leads with its $75 billion raise. Anthropic is targeting a September listing after a $65 billion funding round. Stripe, Databricks, and several other late-stage tech companies are expected to file before year-end.
Each of these offerings represents an opportunity for crypto exchanges to compete with traditional brokerages for retail investor capital. If Bybit and Kraken successfully execute the SpaceX tokenised IPO, they’ll have a proven model to roll out for every subsequent listing.
The competitive implications for traditional finance are significant. Retail investors who have historically maintained brokerage accounts partly for IPO access now have an alternative that’s faster, more accessible, and available globally. A 25-year-old in Jakarta, Nairobi, or São Paulo who has never opened a US brokerage account can now buy SpaceX at the same price as a Goldman Sachs private banking client.
That democratisation is what makes this launch significant beyond the SpaceX headlines. The product isn’t just about one IPO. It’s about building a bridge between crypto infrastructure and primary equity markets that eliminates the structural advantages that institutional investors have enjoyed for decades.
The Risks Worth Understanding
Tokenised IPO shares are a new product category. Several risks apply that don’t exist in traditional IPO investing.
The tokens are representations of equity, not direct ownership. The legal rights of a tokenised shareholder may differ from a traditional shareholder in areas like voting, corporate action participation, and legal recourse. The xStocks framework handles the bridge between the token and the underlying share, but investors should understand that they’re relying on Payward’s infrastructure to maintain that link.
Allocation is not guaranteed. SpaceX’s $150 billion in demand against a $75 billion offering means the IPO is heavily oversubscribed. Bybit users may receive partial allocations or none at all, depending on total subscription volume.
Regulatory risk applies. Tokenised securities operate in a framework that regulators are still defining. The SEC delayed its tokenised stock exemption earlier this month. If regulatory action targets tokenised equity products, it could affect trading or transferability.
And the 24/7 trading that’s an advantage in normal markets becomes a risk during volatile periods. Weekend liquidity is thinner. Price swings can be larger. The same feature that lets you react to Saturday news can also expose you to wider spreads and worse execution.
What This Means for the Future of Finance
Two years ago, buying IPO shares required a relationship with a Wall Street bank. One year ago, it required a premium brokerage account. Today, it requires a Bybit or Kraken account.
The barriers that separated retail investors from primary equity markets are being dismantled by the same blockchain infrastructure that crypto exchanges already operate. Settlement is faster. Access is broader. Hours are unrestricted. And the pricing is equal.
Bybit’s IPO Express is a product launch. It’s also a statement about where finance is heading. When a crypto exchange in Dubai can offer retail investors in 110+ countries the same IPO pricing that Goldman Sachs gets, the question stops being whether crypto and traditional finance will merge and becomes how fast.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Cryptocurrency and securities investments carry significant risk. Always conduct your own research before making any investment or trading decisions.
