Is the Pre-IPO that Bitget is betting on, from SpaceX to OpenAI, a true revolution or a false demand?

Author | Cathy, Plain Language Blockchain

In December 2025, SpaceX completed an internal share sale. Valued at $800 billion, it was the highest in SpaceX's history. However, the shares had long been divided among internal employees and institutions, leaving ordinary people to see the news but unable to get a ticket to enter.

Four months later, Bitget opened a crack in this door.

On April 21, the first project of IPO Prime, preSPAX, launched spot trading. For the first time among centralized exchanges, a platform allowed ordinary users to participate in pre-IPO investments in top unicorns like SpaceX using stablecoins.

In the following three weeks, the market feedback was more direct than expected: preSPAX surged from an issuance price of $650 to a peak of $811.22, with a maximum increase of 24.8%.

At 4 PM today, the second crack also opened------Bitget IPO Prime's second phase, preOPAI, began subscription, with underlying assets linked to OpenAI. The issuers of both projects are regulated compliant institutions, Republic.

01 How Thick is This Wall

In the past two years, making money in the crypto industry has become difficult. It's not a price issue------BTC has reached new highs, and ETH is still alive. The problem is that the story of old assets has been told: those buying BTC are no longer betting on changing the world, but rather allocating a type of "anti-inflation asset."

Many people have turned their attention to companies that have not yet gone public. But there is a wall there.

According to PwC's "Global Top 100 Unicorns 2025" data: the total valuation of the world's top 100 unicorns is approximately $2.94 trillion, having multiplied several times over the past few years------but ordinary investors have almost no chance to share in this.

The traditional Pre-IPO investment threshold starts at 3 million RMB, a "closed game" accessible only to top VCs and ultra-high-net-worth individuals.

SpaceX is the most extreme case among them. Founded by Musk in 2002; Falcon 9 has launched over 600 times, accounting for about 90% of global orbital launch mass in recent years; Starlink has over 10 million subscribers in more than 150 countries, with projected revenue of about $11.4-11.8 billion in 2025.

A company that has turned rocket launches into assembly line operations has never gone public. The internal share sale in December 2025 was the first time the valuation broke $800 billion------but the participants were almost all insiders.

This is the problem that Bitget IPO Prime aims to solve.

02 How Bitget Made This Happen

Leading exchanges like Binance and Coinbase have not yet ventured into the Pre-IPO market; Bitget is the first.

Why Choose SpaceX First

Earlier this year, Musk announced that SpaceX would acquire xAI, elevating SpaceX's narrative from a space company to a vehicle for "putting AI and computing power into orbit."

Bitget's strategic direction is a Universal Exchange, aiming to integrate crypto assets, tokenized stocks, commodities, and foreign exchange into one platform------Pre-IPO is the last missing piece of this map.

Finding Republic: Two Years of Fate, Half a Year of Negotiation

The Pre-IPO market is chaotic, with many platforms having unclear underlying assets.

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen met Republic co-CEO Andrew Durgee two years ago. However, in-depth company research only began in September 2025, and formal cooperation was pushed forward at the beginning of the year.

Republic is one of the few fully licensed platforms with compliance qualifications in the US, Europe, and Asia, with shareholders including Valor Equity Partners (early investors in Tesla and SpaceX).

The cooperation model was set to be very rigorous: it must genuinely hold the corresponding Pre-IPO equity, held through an independent SPV, which Republic would then tokenize. The tokens are backed by real equity shares purchased, not contracts or on-chain exposures.

The Final Sprint

The acquisition of xAI by SpaceX disrupted the rhythm again, causing instant chaos in market pricing. The team needed to verify assets, coordinate equity sellers, and persuade Republic's compliance officer in a very short time.

Ultimately, Bitget secured a total subscription pool of about $60 million, with the subscription threshold lowered to $100. Gracy Chen said, "We want Web3 users to share in Musk's vast universe just like top venture capitalists."

03 How is the First Phase preSPAX Doing Now

To clarify: preSPAX is not real stock in SpaceX; it is a debt certificate issued by the issuer to holders, reflecting SpaceX's performance, without equity, voting rights, or dividend rights.

Core Parameters: Implied valuation of $1.5 trillion, total subscription of 94,000 shares, each at $650, totaling about $61.1 million; minimum investment starting at $100, with a VIP 7 cap of $300,000.

Subscription Side: In Three Days, $177 Million Poured In

The subscription window lasted three days. After opening, the investment surpassed $77 million within 4 hours, exceeded $100 million the next day, and totaled $177 million with 14,435 participants by the close------almost 2.9 times oversubscribed.

Secondary Market: Highest Increase of 24.8% Since Listing

At 8 PM on April 21, preSPAX opened at a peak of 662 USDT (+1.85%), stabilizing around 653.4 USDT (+0.52%).

In the following three weeks, the market's attitude was much clearer than on the opening day. preSPAX/USDT reached a peak of $811.22 since listing, with a maximum increase of 24.8% from the $650 issuance price, pushing the implied valuation from $1.54 trillion to about $1.92 trillion.

Looking at the entire market exposure of SpaceX (with preSPAX taking the highest point since listing and other channels referencing April 21):

Based on the issuance price, preSPAX is the lowest entry price among all tradable SpaceX exposures, and it does not require accredited investor qualifications. This also explains why more than half of the subscribing users did not immediately sell after the opening------they were not betting on a few percentage points of opening premium, but rather on the entire path of SpaceX's primary valuation converging towards the IPO pricing.

SpaceX is expected to land on NASDAQ in June 2026, with a target price of $737 per share (valuing it at $1.75 trillion), with a retail allocation of 30%------a rare high proportion among large US IPOs. According to mainstream brokerage baseline scenarios, from the preSPAX issuance price of $650, the six-month upside potential is about 13% to 20%, and in an optimistic scenario, 30% to 46%.

04 The Second Crack, Opened on OpenAI

IPO Prime is not Bitget's first step in the direction of tokenized assets.

Previously, Bitget had already been deeply involved in tokenized stocks for some time. Lookonchain data shows that the cumulative trading volume of Bitget's stock tokens reached $1 billion in the early stages; in December 2025, the monthly trading volume accounted for 89.1% of Ondo's global market share.

IPO Prime is an upward extension: moving from tokenized stocks in the secondary market to Pre-IPO shares in the primary market. The success of the first phase preSPAX directly led to the second phase.

Core Parameters of preOPAI

• Compliance Framework consistent with the first phase: Republic's Cayman exempt entity issues Mirror Notes under the US Securities Act of 1933, 1:1 pegged to the economic benefits of OpenAI's IPO, regulated by CIMA + annual audits.

• OpenAI's implied valuation is $898.2 billion, with 1 preOPAI = $725, total subscription of 29,082 shares, totaling about $21.08 million, with an investment pool cap of $300 million, minimum investment starting at $100; VIP individual investment caps range from $10,000 (VIP 0) to $600,000 (VIP 7), supporting USDT and USDGO.

Bitget's Chinese head, Xie Jiayin, characterizes this phase as: "preOPAI is the only token on the internet backed by real equity." This points to the earlier Republic + SPV + Mirror Note structure------the economic benefits behind the token are linked 1:1 to OpenAI's primary equity, not an IDO, not contractual air, and not an on-chain naked exposure.

Why OpenAI

• Valuation increased 28 times in three years: from $30 billion in a private round in April 2023 (Thrive Capital + Microsoft) to $852 billion in a super financing round in March 2026 (SoftBank, a16z, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon).

• ARR expected to exceed $20 billion by the end of 2025, a tenfold increase in three years, making it the fastest company in SaaS history to reach $20 billion ARR.

• CFO Sarah Friar publicly stated that the S-1 is expected to be submitted by the end of 2026, with an IPO targeted for 2027 and a goal valuation of $1.5 trillion.

Between $852 billion and $1.5 trillion, the entry price of preOPAI at $898.2 billion is the key to this window.

Rule Adjustments

The second phase introduced a partial lock-up mechanism and plans to prepare special rewards for users, aiming to encourage long-term holding. In other words, Bitget is actively screening users for IPO Prime, allowing those who recognize the logic of "medium to long-term scarce asset allocation" to stay, making this a reusable asset entry rather than a one-time short-term hotspot.

05 Summary

The competition among exchanges in 2026 is no longer about "who lists more coins," but rather "who can provide a more diverse range of asset categories."

Bitget connects the $800 billion SpaceX in the first phase and the trillion-dollar valuation OpenAI in the second phase, breaking down the capital game that excludes 99% of participants under Reg D's "net assets of $1 million / annual income of $200,000" using blockchain to a $100 entry.

SpaceX challenges the boundaries of the aerospace industry, OpenAI challenges the boundaries of intelligence itself, and Bitget challenges the boundaries of traditional finance.

preSPAX has already provided an answer with a peak increase of 24.8%, and the subscription window for preOPAI opened at 4 PM today.

The same ticket to enter has been passed from Musk's vast universe to Ultraman's intelligent future.