The race for SpaceX shares did not play out solely on Wall Street. Crypto has pushed the heavily oversubscribed offering far beyond traditional brokerage accounts, giving users access through perpetual futures, synthetic assets, and asset-backed tokenized stocks.

Of course, most of these products provide no dividends, voting rights, or direct claim on SpaceX assets. Many are also unavailable in the United States due to the uncertain regulatory landscape. Still, the ease with which ordinary crypto users can bypass traditional Wall Street gatekeepers and gain exposure to high-profile products is unprecedented. 

The ways crypto users can gain exposure to equity

Crypto's attempt to bring equities on-chain is not new. Back in 2018, DeFi pioneer Synthetix introduced synthetic versions of stocks, indices, commodities, and forex pairs, allowing users to gain price exposure without owning the underlying assets. The model ultimately failed to generate enough trading volume, and Synthetix began phasing out many equity synths in 2021. Today, the protocol focuses exclusively on cryptocurrency perpetual futures.

Ironically, demand for synthetic stock exposure has since returned. Nearly a year ago, Robinhood offered customers in Europe tokens tied to SpaceX and OpenAI, precising that these represent "tokenized contracts that follow their price, recorded on a blockchain."

Ironically, the demand for synthetic stocks has since returned. Nearly a year ago, Robinhood offered customers in Europe tokens that are tied to SpaceX and OpenAI. Robinhood clarified that they represent “tokenized contracts that follow their price, recorded on a blockchain.”

Another route to SpaceX exposure in crypto comes through perpetual futures. At the beginning of June, Coinbase rolled out a perpetual futures product for pre-initial public offering (IPO) companies, allowing traders to speculate on a company's valuation before its debut. The pre-IPO perp product is not available to users in the United States "only for now," as Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong noted in a post on X. Coinbase said additional pre-IPO listings in technology, AI, energy, and space sectors will be announced "soon."

Perpetual futures, or perps, allow traders to speculate on the direction of an asset through long or short positions without requiring direct ownership of the underlying asset. Unlike traditional futures contracts, they do not expire, making them a useful tool for maintaining exposure over extended periods. 

The most ambitious attempt to bridge equities and crypto arrived in May 2025, when Kraken parent Payward launched xStocks. Available in more than 100 countries, xStocks are tokenized equities backed 1:1 by real shares held by a regulated custodian. Unlike synthetic products, each token is collateralized by an underlying share, although holders generally do not receive traditional shareholder rights such as voting.

Yet despite its promise, xStocks stumbled during one of its most important real-world tests: the SpaceX IPO. Overwhelming demand exposed the limits of the model, as xStocks was unable to secure enough shares for all participating exchanges. Bybit, Binance, and Bitget were forced to cancel customer allocations and issue full refunds. Binance additionally announced that it would distribute $1 million worth of SpaceX shares through bStocks, its newly launched tokenized securities platform.

Still, SpaceX shares, listed as SPCXx, are now live on xStocks and numerous crypto platforms using it. According to xStocks, by June 16, the service had already registered over $500 million in tokenized assets under management.

Tokenized stocks hit $20bn volume

Even with occasional operational setbacks, tokenized stocks continue to gain momentum. As noted by The Kobeissi Letter, we are witnessing a historic surge in tokenized asset trading. Over the last 30 days alone, $4.3bn worth of tokenized stocks were traded on-chain, marking the highest monthly volume since inception and growth of more than 140% year-to-date.

On June 15, following the SpaceX IPO, 24-hour spot volume for tokenized stocks on Solana surpassed $100 million for the first time. Solana dominated trading activity for tokenized SpaceX, reaching a peak 99% share of volume across all chains. Decentralized exchange Jupiter emerged as the leading venue for trading tokenized SpaceX by volume.

The surge pushed the cumulative transfer volume of on-chain tokenized stocks above $20bn for the first time in history. 

Tokenization is accelerating, and the next phase of that convergence is already taking shape. In March, Nasdaq announced a partnership with Payward, the parent company of Kraken, to develop tokenized equities that would enable "programmable investor engagement." Scheduled to launch in the first half of 2027, the initiative aims to "modernize processes" such as corporate actions, shareholder engagement, and proxy voting.