TLDR Tech / Crypto
Tokenized Startups: Restoring Access to Pre-IPO Companies
Companies like Stripe, SpaceX, and OpenAI now remain private for a decade or more, concentrating pre-IPO growth inside private capital, whereas Amazon IPO'd at a $438M valuation just three years after founding. Secondary SPV volume grew over 545% in two years and Hiive's top-50 secondary basket returned 49.1% in 2025, outperforming the S&P 500, signaling sustained retail demand for pre-IPO exposure that current infrastructure cannot efficiently serve. Tokenized RWAs reached approximately $320B onchain in Q1 2026, with US Treasuries and asset-backed credit as leading classes, while stock and commodity perps via projects like TradeXYZ and HIP-3 indicate the onchain asset stack is expanding toward equity-like exposures. The "token-equity consensus" that structured UNI and AAVE governance tokens to explicitly exclude equity rights created a two-tiered system between token holders and equity owners that tokenized venture assets must resolve before the category can scale beyond accredited investors.
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