Trading activity for tokenized pre-IPO perpetual contracts surged in May 2026 after months of low activity, according to a new report from CoinGecko. Monthly trading volume increased 1,059% from $60.51 million in April to $701.44 million in May.
Interestingly, SpaceX’s pre-IPO perpetual trading led the market with monthly trading volume of $305 million, accounting for 43.5% of the total. The strong trading comes ahead of the company’s long-awaited listing on the Nasdaq on June 12th.
AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic ranked second and third, respectively. Taken all together, contracts related to SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic accounted for more than 95% of the pre-IPO perpetual trading volume recorded in May, indicating that activity was highly concentrated in just a few assets.
SpaceX’s pre-IPO prices also showed large differences across major exchanges before its Nasdaq listing, but eventually became more similar as more information became available.
CoinGecko found that in the week leading up to its market debut, SpaceX perpetual contracts were trading at around $170 on exchanges like Binance and WEEX, while they were trading lower at around $155 on Coinbase, Gate, and OKX. As details of the initial public offering became known, prices on major exchanges gradually converged to a range of $160 to $165 by June 10.
In the last two days before the listing, prices on major platforms continued to rise in unison, reaching over $180. On June 12th, the day of the listing, new information regarding the planned listing price was reflected in the pre-IPO market, and the price fluctuated significantly.
Despite the volatility, pre-IPO prices ultimately ended at an average of $157, 4.67% above SpaceX’s opening price of $150.
- SpaceX (SPCX) hits Wall Street and Elon Musk becomes a billionaire
Beyond SpaceX, several prominent cryptocurrency exchanges are steadily expanding their offerings of tokenized real-world assets. Since the beginning of 2025, MEXC has listed the most RWA products. The platform added 199 spot assets and 159 TradFi perpetual contracts for a total of 358 listings.
Next, Gate had 224 RWA products, including 146 permanent assets and 78 spot assets, while WEEX, which ranked third, listed 192 assets with 84 spot assets and 108 permanent assets.
Exchanges such as HTX, Binance, Crypto.com, Coinbase, and OKX are more focused on TradFi permanent listings than spot RWA. CoinGecko found that each of these exchanges recorded only one or two spot RWA listings in the past 17 months. Overall, the exchange averaged 75 permanent listings and 37 spot RWA listings during the period.
