Bitget Wallet Research framed the SPCX tokenized IPO attempt as a lesson in the limits of on-chain distribution when the underlying asset still depends on off-chain allocation. The review begins with ConstitutionDAO in November 2021, when a group of strangers raised more than $40 million within days in an effort to buy a first-edition copy of the U.S. Constitution from 1787. The DAO lost the Sotheby’s auction to a hedge fund billionaire, but the episode showed many users for the first time that blockchain rails could quickly gather retail capital from around the world and direct it toward a scarce asset.
Four and a half years later, a similar pattern appeared in a different setting. On June 12, 2026, SpaceX, trading under the ticker SPCX, listed on Nasdaq. Its opening price was $150, roughly 11% above the $135 indicated IPO subscription price, and the original review described it as the strongest IPO in history. For most users, U.S. IPO participation remains effectively closed: they lack qualified investor status, traditional brokerage accounts, and long-term relationships with underwriters. Bitget Wallet had worked with tokenized stock platform xStocks to open tokenized SPCX IPO subscriptions, setting an individual subscription range of $10 to $5,000 and lowering the participation threshold to nearly zero. The result, however, was not completed delivery. Because xStocks’ upstream underwriting channel failed to obtain the corresponding allocation, the underlying shares could not be delivered on schedule, and the attempt ended with refunds.
On-chain access did not change who controls IPO allocation
According to the review, tokenized IPO subscription is essentially the tokenized distribution of traditional brokerage IPO allocations. What tokenized channels can do is move the subscription interface on-chain: users can participate from different locations, without opening a traditional account, and by using stablecoins. What tokenization cannot change is that the decision over allocation remains in the hands of the traditional financial syndicate.
SpaceX illustrates that mismatch. The joint bookrunners for this IPO included Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, Citi and JPMorgan Chase. These institutions were responsible for bookbuilding, consolidating demand and ultimately deciding how allocations were distributed. The traditional logic gives priority to institutions, relationships and long-term clients. Underwriters tend to favor large orders and clients that can hold positions steadily. The scarcer and more popular an IPO is, the more apparent this tendency becomes. SPCX was oversubscribed by about four times, and BlackRock alone placed an order of around $5 billion, leaving very limited room for crypto-native channels.
The review therefore separates the issue from the subscription interface itself. Blockchain can provide strong global distribution, but at the decisive moment it faces rules that belong to another system. The review described two routes out of this ceiling. One is for crypto-friendly institutions to gradually enter the traditional underwriting network through licensing, capital strength and long-term accumulation, eventually securing institutional seats in the primary market. The other is to push assets to be issued natively on-chain from the start, thereby bypassing the existing IPO quota system. Until those routes are established, tokenized IPO subscription will continue to face a supply-side limit.
A failed delivery still created a real infrastructure test
Although the delivery result was unsatisfactory, the review said the industry-wide attempt still left two concrete signals. First, permissionless on-chain distribution can absorb real retail demand for scarce assets. Second, the infrastructure for on-chain distribution has matured enough to begin reshaping the participation process around traditional IPOs. On the demand side, more than $800 million in subscription funds gathered in a short period from ordinary users around the world, all targeting an asset that traditional channels had largely kept out of reach for them. Users did not need a brokerage account or a complicated onboarding process; they needed a wallet and stablecoins.
The review also emphasized the flexibility of on-chain participation after allocation. Traditional IPO access is often accompanied by anti-flipping restrictions. If successful subscribers sell too quickly, they may face clawed-back commissions, blacklisting or similar penalties. Tokenized assets usually do not impose mandatory lockups, and once received, they can be traded freely. For retail users who have long been blocked by the question of whether they can enter at all, being able to enter and exit freely after entry is itself a scarce form of value.
On execution, the SPCX subscription became a live stress test for wallet and settlement infrastructure. In Bitget Wallet’s case, its self-developed DEX aggregator and multi-chain gas payment support expanded the subscription to USDC and USDT across five chains. Users could subscribe with stablecoins on major chains without manually bridging assets or being stopped by the absence of a native gas token. This setup supported more than $13 million of on-chain subscriptions in less than half an hour.
After the delivery failure was confirmed, full refunds were completed in about four hours. The refunds covered principal, fees and foreign exchange differences, and no user action was required. More importantly, every refund, reconciliation and status update was recorded on-chain as a publicly verifiable transaction. Compared with traditional brokerage refund processes that rely on internal ledgers and manual coordination, the episode produced observable evidence of the transparency and execution efficiency of on-chain infrastructure.
Tokenized IPO access and Pre-IPO Perps serve different users
The review also compared tokenized IPO subscription with another form of Pre-IPO participation: perpetual contracts. Since tokenized IPOs cannot yet change how primary-market assets are supplied, expectations for them need to be grounded in the current structure. In practice, they look more like a stablecoin-based transformation of the traditional IPO workflow. When subscription demand exceeds the actual quota, oversubscription, lotteries, pro-rata allocation and full refunds can all become normal outcomes.
The two tools serve different preferences. Tokenized IPO subscription is closer to a spot structure: it is supported by real underlying assets and is more suitable for users who have lower risk appetite or do not want to bear leverage and funding-rate erosion. The trade-off is limited supply and the risk of oversubscription lotteries or complete refunds. Pre-IPO perpetual contracts do not require waiting for allocation, do not depend on underwriter distribution, and do not require delivery of real shares. They allow users to trade directly around price expectations for an unlisted asset. That gives them greater flexibility, but participants must accept leverage and high volatility risks.
The review noted that Pre-IPO Perps have already shown a degree of price discovery. SPCX perpetual contracts had been trading 24/7 on venues including Hyperliquid from May 18, several weeks before the formal June 12 listing. Near the listing, the cross-venue volume-weighted average price was around $155, about 15% above the $135 issue price. The first official trade after listing was $150, suggesting that the on-chain market had already converged near the actual opening price. Another reference point was Cerebras: when it listed, Hyperliquid’s Pre-IPO Perp pricing differed from the $350 opening price by only about 1.3%.
From losing a bid to lacking access
The review returns to the comparison with ConstitutionDAO to describe the structural change in the problem. ConstitutionDAO lost because its bid was not high enough. The SPCX tokenized IPO attempt failed because the channel did not have the trust and qualification required to enter the room where allocation was decided. The issue therefore moved from execution to structure. Maturity in on-chain infrastructure does not automatically open the off-chain supply side.
The review placed this friction within a broader history of financial infrastructure changes. From the emergence of clearing houses to the replacement of open outcry by electronic trading, old and new systems have often coexisted for long periods while repeatedly clashing. Traditional finance will not open IPO allocation doors after a single failed subscription, just as Sotheby’s did not change auction rules because ConstitutionDAO appeared. Still, the friction leaves a trace: it changes user perception, changes platform capabilities and gradually changes how institutions view crypto channels.
For Bitget Wallet Research, the most important part of this attempt may not be the refund outcome itself. All users who participated experienced using stablecoins in their wallets to reach an asset that had previously belonged mainly to institutions. Once that habit forms, it is hard to reverse. The review concludes that the value of this case lies in turning an unclear failure into a clear question: demand-side readiness and infrastructure readiness have advanced, while supply-side access remains governed by traditional allocation structures.