In 2026, global capital markets are experiencing an unprecedented IPO supercycle.
On June 12, SpaceX officially debuted on Nasdaq with an offering price of $135 per share, raising a staggering $75 billion. This surpassed Saudi Aramco’s $29.4 billion record from 2019, making it the largest IPO in history. Shortly after, OpenAI secretly filed its S-1 draft for a public listing on June 8, aiming to go public in Q4 2026 with a latest valuation of $852 billion. Leading AI company Anthropic has also submitted its IPO registration statement, with a current valuation around $965 billion. Combined, these three super unicorns now boast a total valuation exceeding $3.5 trillion.
According to EY, global IPO fundraising in the first half of 2026 reached $193.6 billion, soaring 210% year-over-year. Goldman Sachs forecasts that US IPO fundraising for the full year will surpass $200 billion.
This surge in IPO valuations isn’t just a fleeting market sentiment—it’s the result of multiple structural forces converging. Meanwhile, Gate officially launched its "IPO Access" service on June 9, 2026, opening IPO subscription channels—traditionally dominated by top brokers and institutions—to digital asset platform users for the first time.
Extended Privatization Cycle: Supply of Quality Assets in Public Markets Is Shrinking
To understand why IPO valuations continue to climb in 2026, it’s crucial to recognize a structural shift: the time from company founding to IPO has lengthened dramatically.
In the 1990s, companies typically went public within 4 to 5 years. Today, that timeline has stretched to 12 years. This means that the most explosive growth phases of companies like SpaceX and OpenAI have been captured almost entirely by early-stage investors in the private market.
DWF Ventures analysis shows that the world’s top 100 unicorns have a combined valuation of about $2.94 trillion—multiplying several times over recent years—yet ordinary investors have had virtually no access. The 2026 IPO cycle is expected to be one of the largest in history, potentially unlocking more than $3.6 trillion in value.
This structural scarcity—the shortage of quality growth assets in public markets—is the underlying logic driving up pre-IPO valuations. When the most valuable growth stages are locked within private markets and public investors can only participate post-listing, pricing power in the pre-IPO stage naturally tilts toward early capital holding scarce shares.
On the supply side, after foundational infrastructure was laid in 2024 and 2025, a wave of projects based on AI agents, specialized application chains, and DePIN tracks are reaching the issuance stage in early 2026. The supply landscape of the pre-IPO market is expanding at a pace never seen before.
AI Capital Frenzy: Valuation Reshaped from Narrative to Cash Flow
The capital frenzy in the AI sector is the central catalyst for high pre-IPO valuations in 2026.
Looking back at this AI financing cycle: In March 2026, AI chip startup Rebellions raised $400 million, reaching a $2.34 billion valuation. In June, Prometheus—an AI startup co-founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos—completed a $1.2 billion Series B, with its valuation skyrocketing to $41 billion. French AI unicorn Mistral AI is negotiating a new funding round, targeting a valuation of €20 billion.
These numbers clearly show that capital is pouring into the AI sector at an unprecedented rate.
However, the driving force behind rising valuations has shifted from pure "tech narrative" to the more pragmatic "scalable cash flow capability." What truly determines a company’s valuation isn’t just the technology itself, but whether the company can convince global capital that its technology can be scaled, commercialized sustainably, and converted into long-term, stable cash flows.
Structural changes in the US stock market are also noteworthy. On June 1, 2026, the S&P 500 closed at 7,580.06, and the Nasdaq Composite at 26,972.62—both at record highs. The S&P 500 has risen 10.7% year-to-date, while the Nasdaq 100 is up over 20%. The tech sector’s weight in the S&P 500 continues to climb, meaning the public market benchmarks for pre-IPO companies are themselves moving higher.
Revival of Private Market Liquidity and Expanded Participation Channels
Rising pre-IPO valuations are also fueled by a revival in private secondary market liquidity. In 2024, global pre-IPO secondary market trading volume reached $160 billion, with individual transactions often exceeding $10 million.
At the same time, expanded access through crypto assets is reshaping traditional capital flows. Digital participation mechanisms like Gate’s IPO Access are opening pre-IPO markets—once exclusive to institutions and high-net-worth individuals—to a broader user base.
Overall, the sustained rise in pre-IPO valuations in 2026 is driven by four forces: shrinking supply, AI capital boom, revived private liquidity, and expanded crypto participation channels.
Three Major Barriers to Traditional IPO Subscription
Before understanding how Gate IPO Access lowers entry barriers, it’s important to clarify the systemic obstacles ordinary investors face in traditional IPO subscription.
Account and geographic restrictions. Traditional IPO subscription usually requires users to open overseas brokerage accounts and meet specific regional eligibility. For example, SpaceX is subject to the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations, and underwriters are explicitly instructed not to accept subscription orders from Mainland China or Hong Kong investors. This excludes a large pool of potential investors right from the start.
Capital and process complexity. Participating in international IPOs often involves fiat currency exchange, cross-border fund transfers, and a complex intermediary system. Users must complete multiple steps across different financial institutions—opening overseas bank accounts, converting currency, transferring funds to foreign broker accounts, and submitting subscription applications. The process is lengthy and costly.
Scarcity of allocation opportunities. Retail quotas for popular IPOs are extremely limited. SpaceX’s IPO was oversubscribed by more than four times, with retail orders exceeding $100 billion and institutional demand surpassing $250 billion. Even if ordinary investors overcome the first two barriers, their chances of allocation remain slim.
Together, these three barriers point to a simple fact: ordinary investors are systematically excluded from traditional IPO systems.
Gate IPO Access: One-Stop Solution from Pre-Listing Subscription to Secondary Market Trading
Gate IPO Access is Gate’s pre-listing stock subscription service. Users can submit intent-to-subscribe applications before a company is officially listed. Once IPO allocation results are confirmed, the platform distributes shares based on the actual allocation received.
Allocated shares are deposited directly into users’ Gate stock accounts, delivering a seamless "listing-to-allocation, shares-direct-to-account" investment experience.
From a user perspective, this forms a complete investment chain: IPO intent subscription → share allocation → share distribution → secondary market trading. The entire process happens within the Gate platform, eliminating the need to switch between platforms or undergo complicated transitions from subscription to holding.
At the infrastructure level, Gate IPO Access operates independently through proprietary channels, not relying on third-party tokenization platforms. The allocation process is insulated from external supply chain disruptions. This design ensures a closed-loop from subscription to allocation to trading.
Revolutionary Reduction in Capital Threshold: From Millions to 100 USDT
The most direct manifestation of low-barrier subscription is the dramatic reduction in capital requirements.
Traditional pre-IPO markets typically require single investments of millions or even tens of millions of dollars. In 2024, global pre-IPO secondary market trading volume reached $160 billion, with most transactions above $10 million. For the vast majority of ordinary users, these numbers are simply out of reach.
Gate IPO Access fundamentally changes this through digitalization. Users don’t need to open overseas brokerage accounts or meet high net-worth thresholds—just hold a Gate account and complete identity verification. Subscription is completed entirely in USDT, with no need for fiat currency conversion or cross-border fund transfers.
The minimum participation amount is just 100 USDT. For the inaugural SpaceX project, the minimum intent subscription is only 100 USDT—reducing the traditional pre-IPO investment threshold by several orders of magnitude.
SpaceX Inaugural Project: Real-World Data Validation
The subscription window for Gate IPO Access’s inaugural SpaceX project opened on June 9, 2026, and closed at 12:00 PM (UTC+8) on June 12. Total intent subscription funds exceeded $143 million, with over 13,400 participants. Within the first 24 hours, intent subscriptions surpassed 9.2 million USDT, with nearly 10,000 participants.
For this project, the minimum intent subscription was 100 USDT and the maximum was 500,000 USDT. The entire process used USDT, and allocated shares could be traded in Gate’s stock section on the listing day, with no lock-up period.
The participation scale—over 13,400 users—shows that IPO Access successfully reached a large group of ordinary investors previously excluded from traditional IPO subscription systems. For most crypto asset users, this was their first opportunity to participate in the IPO of a leading global tech company with just a few hundred dollars.
Gate IPO Access doesn’t operate as a simple "first come, first served" rush. Instead, it uses a transparent allocation mechanism based on time weighting and fund proportion. The system calculates final share allocation weight according to each user’s average locked funds per hour during the intent subscription period, as a proportion of the project’s overall average intent subscription. The earlier and longer users participate and lock funds, the higher their average locked amount and the greater their allocation weight.
For SpaceX’s inaugural project, Gate ultimately received a total allocation of about 33,900 SPCX shares, valued at roughly $20 million. The median allocation ratio for IPO Access was about 3%, with early participants receiving higher allocation percentages.
Conclusion
The sustained rise in global IPO valuations in 2026 is driven by four structural forces: extended privatization cycles causing quality asset shortages, AI capital frenzy reshaping valuations, revived private market liquidity, and expanded crypto participation channels. The combined valuation of SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic now exceeds $3.5 trillion, and the 2026 IPO cycle is expected to unlock over $3.6 trillion in value.
However, traditional IPO subscription systems impose three major structural barriers for ordinary investors: account and geographic restrictions, capital and process complexity, and scarcity of allocation opportunities. Gate IPO Access, with a minimum participation threshold of 100 USDT, full USDT subscription, no need for overseas brokerage accounts, and no lock-up trading, significantly lowers the barriers for ordinary investors to participate in IPOs of leading global companies. The SpaceX inaugural project, with over $143 million in intent subscriptions and more than 13,400 participants, demonstrates the viability and market demand for this model.
As the super IPO cycle continues, Gate IPO Access offers ordinary investors a digital pathway to participate in the IPOs of global unicorn companies.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q1: What is Gate IPO Access?
Gate IPO Access is Gate’s pre-listing stock subscription service. Users can submit intent-to-subscribe applications before a company is officially listed. Once IPO allocation results are confirmed, the platform distributes shares based on the actual allocation received. Allocated shares are deposited directly into users’ Gate stock accounts, ensuring a closed-loop from subscription to allocation to trading.
Q2: What are the requirements to participate in Gate IPO Access?
Users don’t need to open overseas brokerage accounts or meet high net-worth thresholds. Just hold a Gate account and complete identity verification. Subscription is completed entirely in USDT, with no need for fiat currency conversion or cross-border fund transfers.
Q3: What is the minimum participation amount for Gate IPO Access?
The minimum participation amount is just 100 USDT. For the inaugural SpaceX project, the minimum intent subscription is only 100 USDT.
Q4: How does the allocation mechanism work for Gate IPO Access?
Gate IPO Access uses a transparent allocation mechanism based on time weighting and fund proportion. The system calculates final share allocation weight according to each user’s average locked funds per hour during the intent subscription period, as a proportion of the project’s overall average intent subscription. The earlier and longer users participate and lock funds, the greater their allocation weight.
Q5: Can allocated shares be traded immediately?
Yes. Allocated shares can be traded in Gate’s stock section on the listing day, with no lock-up period.
Q6: Which projects are currently supported by Gate IPO Access?
The inaugural project for Gate IPO Access is SpaceX (stock code SPCX). Future projects will be opened according to IPO issuance progress and platform review. Please refer to Gate platform announcements for specific project information.
