Trading in tokenized pre IPO perpetual contracts saw explosive growth in May 2026, according to a new report from CoinGecko.
Monthly trading volume surged by 1,059%, rising from $60.51 million in April to $701.44 million in May. This sharp increase followed several months of relatively weak market activity and signals growing investor interest in tokenized pre IPO assets.
SpaceX Drives Market Momentum
SpaceX emerged as the clear leader in the market, recording $305 million in monthly trading volume. That represented 43.5% of all tokenized pre IPO perpetual trading activity in May.
Strong interest in SpaceX contracts intensified ahead of the company’s highly anticipated Nasdaq listing on June 12.
Artificial intelligence giants OpenAI and Anthropic ranked second and third in trading activity.
Combined, contracts linked to SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic accounted for more than 95% of all tokenized pre IPO perpetual trading volume during the month, showing that market activity was heavily concentrated in a small number of high profile assets.
SpaceX contract prices also varied significantly across major exchanges before the listing but gradually aligned as more IPO related information became available.
During the week leading up to the debut, SpaceX perpetual contracts traded near $170 on exchanges such as Binance and WEEX.
Meanwhile, Coinbase, Gate, and OKX priced the contracts lower at approximately $155.
As additional IPO details became public, prices across exchanges gradually converged into the $160 to $165 range by June 10.
In the final two days before listing, prices moved higher together and climbed above $180. On June 12, fresh information about the expected listing price triggered significant volatility in pre IPO markets.
Despite sharp swings, SpaceX tokenized contracts eventually closed at an average price of $157, around 4.67% above the stock’s opening price of $150.
Traditional Finance Products Gain Ground on Crypto Exchanges
Beyond SpaceX, crypto exchanges are rapidly expanding access to tokenized real world assets and traditional finance linked products.
Since the beginning of 2025, MEXC has listed the largest number of real world asset products, adding 358 total listings. These included 199 spot assets and 159 traditional finance perpetual contracts.
Gate ranked second with 224 RWA products, including 146 perpetual contracts and 78 spot listings.
WEEX came third with 192 listings, made up of 84 spot assets and 108 perpetual offerings.
Several major exchanges, including HTX, Binance, Crypto.com, Coinbase, and OKX, have focused more heavily on traditional finance perpetual contracts rather than spot real world asset listings.
CoinGecko found that each of these exchanges added only one or two spot RWA listings over the past 17 months.
Overall, exchanges averaged 75 perpetual contract listings compared with 37 spot RWA listings, highlighting stronger demand for perpetual products tied to real world and traditional financial assets.#crypto#cryptonews https://coinsignals.net https://t.me/coinsignalpublic
