OKX is preparing to offer perpetual futures tied to private companies such as OpenAI, SpaceX and Anthropic, increasing competition among crypto companies to bring the pre-IPO speculation market on-chain, the company said in a blog post on Wednesday.
The deal will provide synthetic price exposure to private companies ahead of their expected public listing, without conferring actual stock ownership or shareholder rights.
Bitget entered the space in April with IPO Prime, listing Solana-based SpaceX-related tokens issued through investment platform Republic. Last year, Injective rolled out pre-IPO perpetual futures tied to companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX, and Perplexity, describing these products as a way to bring the $13 trillion private equity market “directly on-chain.”
This trend also reflects how crypto exchanges are increasingly moving beyond Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) trading to include stocks, prediction markets, and real-world assets in search of new trading sources.
Robinhood tried something similar, but took a different approach last year. The fintech platform offered OpenAI-linked tokens backed by a special purpose vehicle that holds shares purchased on the secondary market rather than direct stock ownership.
At the time, OpenAI publicly distanced itself from the product, warning that it would need approval to transfer any real company stock.
