Why Retail is Buying Tokenized Access to Private Companies

Anthropic last closed a primary funding round in February at a $380 billion post-money valuation, led by GIC and Coatue. Two weeks ago, sources confirmed the company is weighing fresh offers at around $900 billion, in what is likely its last private round before an IPO. On crypto venues that Anthropic does not recognize, the company's implied valuation has touched $1.6 trillion.
 

Same company, three prices. The highest one is being set by traders who hold no shares, no voting rights, no claim on the cap table, and, in Anthropic's own words, instruments the company treats as void.

The gap between these numbers is the story. We're not asking if tokenized private equity is good or bad, but what it actually is, and what retail investors are buying when they buy it.

What is Tokenized Private Equity?

The word "tokenization" is doing a lot of work in current market commentary, and it is covering three distinct structures that share almost nothing except a blockchain rail.

Perpetual futures on private companies

The first category is the perpetual future. 

Ventuals, OKX, and Bitget's IPO Prime offer contracts that reference private-company valuations without backing them with any underlying asset. There is no share or SPV, or settlement event. The contract price floats on an index, and the index floats on whatever traders think Anthropic, OpenAI, or SpaceX is worth that afternoon.

Ventuals, backed by Paradigm, has accumulated around $500 million in trading volume since its November launch. OKX listed SPACEX/USDT, OPENAI/USDT, and ANTHROPIC/USDT perpetual contracts on May 7, settling in USDT, with reference prices derived from secondary-market activity. None of this volume touches an actual share. The contracts grant no equity, voting rights, or dividends, and the exchanges say so in their own documentation.

SPV-backed tokens

The second category is the SPV-backed token. PreStocks, Jarsy, and the Robinhood product launched in Europe last summer and fall. A Delaware LLC or equivalent vehicle holds actual private shares, and tokens are minted one-to-one against the SPV's position. Jarsy markets this as tokens backed 1:1 by economic rights of corresponding shares held in its Delaware LLCs.

This is closer to ownership, but the holder owns a claim on the SPV, not on the underlying company. PreStocks has crossed $630 million in aggregate volume since September 2025. The distinction between owning the SPV claim and owning the company matters enormously when the SPV's counterparty risk shows up: in a dispute, a bankruptcy, or a corporate event at the issuer.

Mirror and Reference Tokens

The third category is the mirror or reference token. Bitget's preOPAI, launched recently, is the cleanest example. It prices against secondary-market quotes, sits on Solana, requires a $100 entry, and explicitly disclaims any direct ownership of OpenAI shares. The total issuance is 29,082 tokens at $725 each, worth roughly $21 million. It is a synthetic that tracks a number and is not authorized by the company it references.

Most people collapse these three structures into tokenized shares. They are not the same product, risk profile, or asset class. A reader who treats them interchangeably is making the first mistake the category encourages.

Why tokenized private instruments exist

The number of US public companies fell from roughly 8,000 in 1996 to around 4,000 by 2020. The best risk-adjusted returns of the last decade have increasingly accrued before the IPO bell, behind a wall that requires either an accredited-investor designation, an institutional relationship, or both. 

While retail got meme stocks. Sequoia got Anthropic.

The scale of that exclusion is not subtle. OpenAI and Anthropic together raised over $44 billion in Q1 2025 alone. SpaceX is currently valued at over $1.25 trillion in private markets following its acquisition of xAI in February. Every dollar of that appreciation accrued to insiders and institutions. By the time these companies list, most of the value creation is already in someone else's pocket.

Liquidity for employees and early backers

Early employees holding restricted stock have historically had three options: wait for an IPO, hope for a tender offer, or attempt a cumbersome direct secondary sale. 

An SPV-based tokenization path lets that employee place a portion of their position into a compliant vehicle and sell 15 to 25 percent to cover life milestones while retaining long-term upside. 

The same structure allows family offices to build late-stage exposure without assembling a broker network and bespoke paperwork for each transaction.

Lower entry points

Minimums have come down sharply. AngelList's USVC fund offers access to OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, with a $500 minimum for US-accredited investors. 

Jarsy advertises a $10 entry on its tokenized SPV products. The Destiny Tech100, a closed-end fund holding exposure to SpaceX and OpenAI, offers public-market access through a brokerage account, though with the volatility that comes with thin underlying liquidity.

Price discovery and programmable collateral

Tokenized order books, whatever else can be said about them, are public. Secondary-market pricing for private shares has historically been opaque, broker-mediated, and slow. A real-time order book, even a thin one with questionable pricing, is more transparent than calling around to brokers for indicative quotes. The data is at least visible.
 

There is also a credit dimension. Tokenized shares held in compliant wrappers can collateralize onchain stablecoin or fiat loans, with loan-to-value ratios typically in the 20-40% range. 

For someone holding shares they cannot sell for two more years, the ability to borrow against the position without exiting it is not a small feature. Risk parameters (LTV, interest rates, liquidation thresholds) can be set programmatically, and collateral requirements can adjust automatically to valuation changes.
 

The Risks of Tokenized Shares

Issuer disavowal

OpenAI publicly disowned Robinhood's tokens within days of launch, stating it had no affiliation with the offering. 

Anthropic has warned that tokenized structures referencing its shares may carry no legal value and that the company treats them as void. 

Bitget's own terms state that preOPAI does not confer direct ownership of OpenAI shares and is not authorized by the firm.

The asset's legitimacy depends on a counterparty that does not recognize the asset. The token holder has a contractual claim against the SPV, a private agreement with an intermediary, not a claim against the company.

Valuation disconnect

Institutional investors with access to Anthropic's financials are pricing the company at $900 billion in active negotiations. Crypto venues are pricing it at $1.6 trillion. One of these groups is mispricing the company by roughly half.

The institutional bid is being placed by GIC, Coatue, Founders Fund, Sequoia, and others with diligence access. The tokenized bid is being placed by traders working from public information and sentiment.

The tokenized market has accumulated an implied valuation of $1.6 trillion despite no change in Anthropic's fundamentals since the February round, which would justify a near-tripling.

Perpetual futures

Perpetual contracts deserve their own treatment because they are routinely marketed as "pre-IPO exposure" when they are not. 

A perp on Anthropic is a bet on what other traders will pay for the same bet tomorrow. There is no convergence event. The contract never has to settle on anything real. 

When Anthropic eventually IPOs, the perpetual does not mark to the listing price; it can continue trading wherever sentiment puts it, indefinitely, with funding rates as the only mechanism connecting it to spot reality.

This is structurally different from SPV-backed tokens, where there is at least an eventual reckoning between the SPV's claim and the company's actions. Perps have no such anchor.
 

Mega-IPO underperformance

Since 1999, brand-name IPOs have consistently underperformed in the six months following listing. Tokens priced at peak narrative may be marking the top of a cycle rather than an entry into it. 

If SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic all list within the next twelve months at valuations between $1 trillion and $2 trillion each, the post-IPO drawdown pattern alone suggests tokenized buyers entering at current implied prices could see significant losses without the company doing anything wrong.

The S&P Dow Jones Indices proposal to accelerate S&P 500 inclusion for mega-IPOs would create forced index buying that supports prices in the short term, but the historical post-IPO pattern is strong enough that betting against it has been profitable more often than not.
 

Regulatory ambiguity

The reason Robinhood launched its tokenized OpenAI and SpaceX products in Europe rather than the United States is that MiCA provided a workable regulatory framework. US treatment of these instruments remains unsettled. 

The SEC has not issued clear guidance on tokenized private-company derivatives, and the line between a security, a swap, and a payment token is contested across multiple categories. Jurisdiction-shopping at the issuer level should be a yellow flag at the retail level.

What tokenized private equity means for capital markets

Tokenization is about whether the rails that crypto built (perpetual futures, SPV wrappers, on-chain settlement, 24/7 order books) are being repurposed into a parallel capital market that prices private companies in real time, without those companies' consent or participation.
 

Binance Research's recent "Finance Without Frontiers" report framed tokenized pre-IPO products as a structural trend rather than a speculative blip, and the tokenized real-world asset market has crossed $31 billion across Treasuries, credit, commodities, funds, and equities.

Two events will clarify the category. The first is a major counterparty failure: an SPV operator that goes insolvent, loses custody, or fails to deliver on its tokens, stranding a meaningful cohort of holders.

The second is an IPO in which the token-implied price and listing price diverge by an order of magnitude, forcing both retail holders and institutional observers to reckon with what the tokens were actually pricing. 
 

What this means for investors like you

The value of holding a real asset is that no counterparty can void it. The entire architecture of self-custody in hardware wallets, in bearer instruments, and in direct share registration rests on this property. 

Tokenized private equity inverts it. The asset exists only because a counterparty agrees it does, and in several high-profile cases, the issuer referenced has explicitly said it does not.

This is not a reason to dismiss the category. Employee liquidity solutions, accredited-investor SPV products with strong legal wrappers, and properly disclosed reference instruments all serve real functions.
 

Glossary

• SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle). A separate legal entity, usually a Delaware LLC, created to hold one specific asset, in this case, shares in a single private company like Anthropic or SpaceX. Investors buy a stake in the SPV, which in turn owns the shares. If the SPV has problems, holders have a claim against the SPV, not against the underlying company.
   

• Perpetual Future (Perp). A derivative contract that lets traders bet on the price of an asset without owning it. Unlike traditional futures, perpetuals have neither expiry nor a settlement event. They trade indefinitely, kept loosely anchored to spot price through a funding rate. In tokenized private equity, perps reference private-company valuations without any underlying shares.
   

• Mirror Token. A blockchain token whose price tracks another asset by reference rather than by ownership. The holder owns the token, not the underlying. Bitget's preOPAI, which prices against OpenAI secondary-market quotes while explicitly disclaiming any ownership claim, is a current example.
   

• Cap Table. The official record of who owns equity in a company. Determines who gets paid in an IPO, acquisition, or liquidation. Token holders in tokenized private equity products are typically not on the cap table; the SPV is.
   

• MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets). The European Union's crypto regulatory framework has been fully applicable since 2024. The primary reason Robinhood and others launched tokenized private equity products in Europe before the United States.
   

• Self-Custody. A model in which the asset holder controls the private keys directly, without relying on an exchange or broker. Works cleanly for native blockchain assets. Works less cleanly for tokenized products, where transfer restrictions and SPV agreements add counterparty dependencies that a wallet cannot remove.