From SpaceX to OpenAI: Are Bitget’s Pre-IPO Bets Genuine Revolutions or Fake Demand?

By Cathy and Baihua Blockchain

In December 2025, SpaceX completed an internal share sale.

Valued at $800 billion—the highest in its history—the shares were fully allocated among internal employees and institutional investors. Ordinary people could read about it in the news but had no access to participate.

Four months later, Bitget cracked the door open—just a crack.

On April 21, IPO Prime’s first offering, preSPAX, launched spot trading. For the first time on a centralized exchange, users could use stablecoins to participate in pre-IPO investment in top-tier unicorns like SpaceX.

Over the following three weeks, market feedback proved even more direct than expected: preSPAX surged from its $650 issuance price to a peak of $811.22—a maximum gain of 24.8%.

At 4 p.m. today, the second crack opened—Bitget IPO Prime’s second offering, preOPAI, has commenced subscription. Its underlying asset is pegged to OpenAI.

Both offerings are issued by Republic, a regulated and compliant institution.

01 How Thick Is This Wall?

The past two years have been tough for making money in the crypto industry.

It’s not about price—BTC hit a new all-time high, and ETH remains robust. The issue is that the narratives behind legacy assets have run their course: BTC buyers are no longer betting on world-changing disruption; instead, they’re treating it as an “inflation hedge” asset class.

Many have turned their attention to companies yet to go public—but there’s a wall there.

According to PwC’s “Global Top 100 Unicorns 2025,” the combined valuation of the world’s top 100 unicorns stands at approximately $2.94 trillion—up several-fold, even dozens of-fold, over recent years. Yet ordinary investors remain almost entirely excluded.

Traditional pre-IPO investments carry minimum thresholds of RMB 3 million (approx. $420,000), making them a “closed game” reserved for top-tier VCs and ultra-high-net-worth individuals.

SpaceX represents the most extreme case.

Founded by Elon Musk in 2002, Falcon 9 has completed over 600 launches, accounting for roughly 90% of global orbital mass delivered in recent years. Starlink serves over 10 million subscribers across more than 150 countries, generating ~$11.4–11.8 billion in revenue in 2025.

A company that has turned rocket launches into a production-line operation refuses to go public. Its December 2025 internal share sale marked the first time its valuation crossed $800 billion—but nearly all participants were insiders.

This is precisely the problem Bitget’s IPO Prime aims to solve.

02 How Bitget Made This Happen

Major exchanges—including Binance and Coinbase—have yet to enter the pre-IPO space. Bitget is the first.

Why SpaceX First?

Early this year, Musk announced SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI—elevating SpaceX’s narrative from a spaceflight company to a vehicle for launching AI and computing infrastructure into orbit.

Bitget’s strategic vision is that of a Universal Exchange—integrating crypto assets, tokenized equities, commodities, and forex onto one unified platform. Pre-IPO was the final missing piece of that mosaic.

Finding Republic: Two Years of Connection, Six Months of Negotiation

The pre-IPO market is rife with opacity—many platforms offer products with unclear or unverifiable underlying assets.

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen met Andrew Durgee, co-CEO of Republic, two years ago. However, formal, in-depth due diligence only began in September 2025, with official collaboration commencing early this year.

Republic is among the few full-license platforms with regulatory approvals across the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Its shareholders include Valor Equity Partners—the early investor in both Tesla and SpaceX.

The partnership model is rigorously structured: Republic must hold actual pre-IPO equity through an independent SPV, then tokenize the SPV’s rights. Each token represents real purchased equity—not a derivative contract or on-chain exposure.

The Final Push

SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI temporarily disrupted the timeline, causing immediate pricing volatility. The team had to rapidly re-verify assets, coordinate with equity sellers, and persuade Republic’s compliance officers.

Ultimately, Bitget secured a total subscription pool of ~$60 million—with a minimum entry threshold reduced to just $100.

Gracy Chen said: “We want Web3 users to share in Elon Musk’s cosmic ambitions—just like top-tier VCs do.”

03 Where Does preSPAX Stand Now?

• Let’s clarify upfront: preSPAX is not actual SpaceX stock. It is a debt instrument issued by the issuer, reflecting SpaceX’s financial performance—but conferring no equity ownership, voting rights, or dividends.
• Key parameters: implied valuation of $1.5 trillion; total supply of 94,000 units; unit price $650; total value ~$61.1 million; minimum investment $100; VIP 7 cap: $300,000.
• Subscription demand: $177 million in three days
• The subscription window lasted three days. Within four hours of launch, commitments surpassed $77 million; by the next day, $100 million; and upon closing, total subscriptions reached $177 million from 14,435 participants—oversubscribed nearly 2.9x.

Secondary Market: Up 24.8% Since Launch

preSPAX opened at 8 p.m. on April 21, reaching a high of $662 USDT (+1.85%) and stabilizing near $653.4 USDT (+0.52%).

Over the next three weeks, market sentiment grew markedly clearer. preSPAX/USDT peaked at $811.22—up 24.8% from its $650 issuance price—and pushed its implied valuation from $1.54 trillion up to ~$1.92 trillion.

Across all publicly tradable SpaceX exposure (preSPAX reflects its all-time high; others reflect April 21 reference prices):

Based on issuance price, preSPAX offers the lowest entry point—and the only one requiring no accredited investor status—among all tradable SpaceX exposures.

That explains why over half of subscribers chose not to sell immediately after listing—they weren’t chasing a few percentage points of opening-day premium, but rather betting on the full convergence path from pre-IPO valuation to eventual IPO pricing.

SpaceX is expected to list on Nasdaq in June 2026, targeting a $737/share price ($1.75 trillion market cap), with a 30% retail allocation—an unusually high proportion for a major U.S. IPO.

Per mainstream broker base-case scenarios, preSPAX offers ~13–20% upside over six months from its $650 issuance price; under optimistic assumptions, 30–46%.

04 The Second Crack: OpenAI

IPO Prime isn’t Bitget’s first step into tokenized assets.

Bitget has already built deep expertise in tokenized equities. According to Lookonchain data, its tokenized stock trading volume reached $1 billion shortly after launch; in December 2025, its monthly volume accounted for 89.1% of Ondo’s global market share.

IPO Prime represents the next logical extension—from tokenized equities in secondary markets to pre-IPO equity stakes in primary markets. The success of preSPAX directly catalyzed preOPAI.

preOPAI Key Parameters

Regulatory framework aligns with Phase I: Republic’s Cayman Islands exempt entity issues Mirror Notes under Rule S of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933—each note 1:1 economically linked to OpenAI’s IPO returns—under CIMA regulation and subject to annual audits.

OpenAI’s implied valuation: $898.2 billion; 1 preOPAI = $725; total supply: 29,082 units; total value ~$21.08 million; subscription pool cap: $300 million; minimum investment: $100; VIP individual caps range from $10,000 (VIP 0) to $600,000 (VIP 7); supports USDT and USDGO.

Xie Jiayin, Bitget’s Head of Chinese Markets, characterized this offering as: “preOPAI is the only token on the market backed by genuine equity.”

He refers specifically to the Republic + SPV + Mirror Note structure—where each token’s economic returns are 1:1 linked to OpenAI’s primary-market equity—not an IDO, not a synthetic contract, and not a naked on-chain exposure.

Why OpenAI?

Three-year valuation growth of 28x: From a $3 billion private round in April 2023 (led by Thrive Capital and Microsoft) to an $85.2 billion mega-round in March 2026 (backed by SoftBank, a16z, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Amazon).

ARR exceeded $20 billion by end-2025—up 10x in three years—the fastest-ever ARR climb to $20 billion in SaaS history.

CFO Sarah Friar publicly stated that the S-1 filing is targeted before end-2026, with IPO anchored for 2027 and a target valuation of $1.5 trillion.

Between $852 billion and $1.5 trillion lies the $898.2 billion entry price of preOPAI—the key to this window.

Rule Adjustments

Phase II introduces partial lock-up mechanisms and allocates dedicated rewards for staking and wealth management—aiming to incentivize long-term holding.

In other words, Bitget is proactively curating its IPO Prime user base—retaining those who embrace the logic of “medium-to-long-term scarce asset allocation,” transforming IPO Prime into a repeatable asset gateway—not a one-off short-term trend.

05 Summary

Exchange competition in 2026 is no longer about “who lists more tokens,” but “who offers more diverse asset classes.”

Bitget’s first offering tapped into SpaceX’s $800 billion valuation; its second taps into OpenAI’s trillion-dollar valuation—dismantling the Reg D capital game (requiring $1M net worth or $200K annual income) that excludes 99% of participants, down to $100 per unit via blockchain.

SpaceX pushes the boundaries of aerospace engineering; OpenAI challenges the frontiers of intelligence itself; Bitget challenges the limits of traditional finance.

preSPAX has already answered with a 24.8% surge. The preOPAI subscription window opened at 4 p.m. today.

One single ticket—handing off from Elon Musk’s cosmic ambitions to Sam Altman’s intelligent future.