On June 12, 2026, SpaceX listed on Nasdaq at an offering price of $135 per share under the ticker SPCX. The company raised $75 billion, setting a record for IPO fundraising. After the open, SPCX traded above $170 at one point, more than 25% above the offer price, turning the listing into one of the most watched public-market events of the day.
A major IPO meets a failed on-chain access test
While traditional financial markets celebrated SpaceX’s debut, the crypto industry’s attempt to offer retail users access through tokenized IPO products ended with widespread refunds and frustration. Bybit, Binance and Bitget Wallet each announced cancellations and full refunds. Kraken, which had been viewed by many users as the more reliable route because of its relationship to the underlying tokenized stock framework, also disappointed participants: according to community feedback, many successful users received only about 4.2786 SPCXx tokens regardless of how much they had committed.
The infrastructure at the center of the dispute was xStocks, a tokenized equity framework issued by Backed Assets (JE) Limited, a company under Payward Services, Kraken’s parent company. The xStocks model is designed so that each token corresponds 1:1 to an underlying real share, with the actual shares held in custody by a regulated broker. Kraken launched SpaceX IPO Access on June 5 under the token code SPCXx, opening subscriptions to verified users in more than 110 regions.
Demand surged across Bybit, Binance and Bitget Wallet
Bybit followed on June 7 with its IPO Express product and selected the SpaceX offering as the first asset in that line. The indicative price was set at 135 USDC, with an additional 5% underwriting fee. Each user could subscribe with a minimum of 100 USDC and place up to 50 subscription orders. Binance then launched an SPCXx subscription under the name of its “first IPO Campaign.” Bitget Wallet also introduced a similar product through the xStocks framework on Solana. Its initial quota was $3 million, but strong demand led it to expand the quota quickly to $13 million, and the product was oversubscribed four times within 30 minutes.
SpaceX formally went public on Nasdaq on June 12, raising $75 billion at an implied valuation of $1.75 trillion. That same day, however, crypto platforms began issuing notices saying the actual allocation of underlying shares obtained by xStocks from underwriters was far below expectations, leaving xStocks unable to deliver enough shares to the platforms to satisfy user demand.
Bitget said on X: “The xStocks team made every effort to secure allocation, but ultimately failed to implement it as expected.” Bybit also confirmed on X that because xStocks could not deliver the underlying asset, Bybit had not received any SpaceX share allocation. It said all subscription funds would be automatically returned in full to users’ original accounts, and eligible participants would receive a compensation reward of about 10% annualized interest.
Binance refunds, SPCXB airdrop and Kraken’s 4.2786-token result
Binance, Bitget and Bybit subsequently cancelled their campaigns and announced full refunds, while also promising additional compensation for affected users. On-chain data showed that within 28 hours of Binance’s SPCXx subscription opening, around $557 million in USDC subscription commitments came from 27,689 wallet addresses. More than 81% of addresses subscribed no more than $20,000 in a single order, while 114 addresses each staked at least $500,000. After the cancellation, the exchange said it would fully refund the locked USDC and airdrop a total of $1 million worth of bStocks SpaceX tokens, SPCXB, to all participating users, with arrival expected before June 18.
Kraken, the exchange connected to xStocks, faced similar disappointment from users. Community reports said successful Kraken subscribers received a fixed 4.2786 SPCXx tokens no matter how much they had committed. At the $135 offer price, that allocation was worth roughly $578 to $606, with the remaining funds refunded. Kraken has not officially confirmed that exact figure. At the same time, some users in mainland China who received shares said the app displayed a regional restriction preventing them from trading their SpaceX share allocation, meaning the roughly four shares they received were not necessarily sellable.
Kraken explained on its support page that IPO allocation rights belong to the underwriters, and that allocation may be handled on a pro rata, random, tiered or relationship-based basis. It also said partial allocations or even zero allocations can be a normal result in a high-demand environment. Kraken emphasized that the shortfall came from underwriters’ allocation decisions rather than a technical or operational problem on the platform.
User screenshots, criticism and Gate.io’s partial exception
As the situation developed, Chinese-speaking users on X posted screenshots and complaints. Kraken user @joeylu0627 described the experience in detail: “In my case, I put in 200,000 U and finally got 4.2786 shares of SPCX, worth about 700 dollars, while the rest was refunded. Fortunately I didn’t lose money; I just used a large amount of money to earn a tiny amount…” User @jijioulei33190 wrote more sharply: “Whether it’s 1,000 U or 100,000 U, everyone gets 4.2 shares of SpaceX… Chinese-region users got the stock, but I ** can’t trade it, only buy and not sell?”
Overseas user @MengLayer, also known as Chen Xiaomeng, who received a 606 U allocation, posted a screenshot showing SPCXx being swapped back into USDC on Kraken Pro and wrote: “1 million in IPO subscription, earned 60 U. I’m really amazing.” He also quoted another user’s complaint: “If it goes up, they refund you; if it falls, they give it to you.” Some users also speculated that there was a possibility that user allocations were privately withheld after the value of the shares rose.
Not every crypto platform ended the process with a full refund. Gate.io also had actual share allocations. User @px521com2 posted a detailed subscription record: “Sesame (Gate) subscribed 5,786 dollars → 5,557 dollars returned → sold for 268 dollars, profit 39 dollars; plus the Kraken part, today’s total net profit was 127 dollars. In today’s crypto market where ‘90% of people are cursing,’ being able to pick up 127 dollars already makes me very satisfied.” Compared with Kraken’s fixed “4.2 shares per person” allocation, Gate’s pro rata allocation mechanism gave some users a relatively more flexible room for actual returns.
In other words, the central issue was not whether tokenized stocks could be issued, settled or displayed on-chain. The problem was that crypto platforms did not truly control the upstream resources of IPO allocation. SpaceX issued about 555.6 million shares at $135 per share and raised about $75 billion, setting a global IPO fundraising record. With extremely high retail subscription enthusiasm, the demand aggregated by crypto platforms far exceeded the allocation they were actually able to secure from the traditional underwriting system. In this SpaceX IPO, most retail users in crypto never really got a seat at the table. The large-scale test of “on-chain IPO” access showed that demand had been organized, but supply remained in the hands of traditional finance.