OKX is preparing to offer perpetual futures tied to private companies including OpenAI, SpaceX and Anthropic, intensifying a growing race among crypto firms to bring speculative markets ahead of the chain’s IPO, the company said in a blog post on Wednesday.
The contracts will give private companies synthetic price exposure ahead of their expected public IPOs, without providing actual stock ownership or shareholder rights.
Bitget entered the sector in April with “IPO Prime,” listing a Solana-based SpaceX-linked token issued through investment platform Republic. Last year, Injective rolled out perpetual pre-IPO futures tied to firms including OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX and Perplexity, describing the products as a way to bring the $13 trillion private equity market “right into the chain.”
The trend also reflects how crypto exchanges are increasingly moving beyond bitcoin and ether trading (ETH) to include stocks, prediction markets and real-world assets as they seek new sources of trading activity.
Robinhood tried something similar but took a different approach last year. The fintech platform offered OpenAI-linked tokens backed by a special purpose that had shares purchased on the secondary market, rather than direct share ownership.
OpenAI publicly distanced itself from the product at the time, warning that any transfer of actual company capital would require its approval.
