Best Platforms & Crypto Exchanges to Trade Pre-IPO Tokens

Pre-IPO tokens are digital tokens that give you exposure to a private company before it lists publicly. Now, these tokens offer “exposure” and not ownership. It’s important to understand this difference. In most cases with pre-IPO tokens, you don’t own a share of OpenAI, for example. Instead, you own an instrument whose value is tied to OpenAI.

Thanks to these pre-IPO tokens, retail investors and crypto native investors can buy fractional exposure to tech companies like Anthropic and OpenAI before they hit the stock market, and without needing to meet U.S. accreditation rules. Eliminating the entry barrier explains why there’s serious interest in pre-IPO tokens among retail investors and crypto-native investors.

There’s a real difference between pre-IPO tokens and public stocks. Let’s look at a few areas where they differ in the table below.

Not all pre-IPO tokens are structured the same, and it’s important you understand how each platform is structured before using any. Their exposure model is what decides what you truly own. These are the common exposure models for pre-IPO tokens:

The SPV-Backed Exposure

In this structure, you invest in a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) that holds the actual shares of a private company. The platform issues a token that represents your SPV interest. You don’t own the company’s stock, but your token gives you legal claim to its value. When the company hits the stock market, the SPV sells the stock and gives you cash from the profit. You don’t have voting rights or any direct company information.

Structured Notes

Here, you hold a debt note and not equity. The note pays you returns based on changes in the target company’s valuation. The platform issues a token that represents your note. A good platform that offers this is Republic, through their Mirror Tokens. You own a contractual claim to payments, with no equity ownership, shareholder rights. You are a debt holder and not an owner.

Tokenized Equity

This model fractionalizes real private shares and represents them as on-chain tokens. One token equals one fractional share. Jarsy is the platform for investors considering tokenized equities. It issues tokens against SPVs that hold real shares. The tokenized equity structure offers you fractional ownership. Your ownership is via the token and not registration.

Synthetic Tokens

This structure tracks a token’s valuation using a math formula. For example, if SpaceX is worth $200B, the token might cost around $200. There are no actual stock shares that exist under this structure. You have no ownership or shareholder rights.

Traditional Secondary Markets

This is the traditional way to invest in private companies before crypto tokens emerged. Under this system, existing shareholders or employees sell their shares to new buyers via regulated markets. Unlike the token model, you buy an actual stake or a fund unit that holds real shares, meaning you get real ownership. Forge, Hiive, and EquityZen are some of the notable options in this structure.

Before going into individual platform review, we want you to understand how we ranked each pre-IPO platform on our list. We didn’t rank them based on hype or headline name. We ranked them using our CoinGape Review Methodology as a guide. Overall, we focused on what investors get from each platform and what it costs them to get in and out, using five criteria:

Republic’s Mirror Tokens allows U.S retail investors get exposure to companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Databricks without accreditation, from as low as $50. What you hold when you use Republic is a tokenized debt note from RepublicX, not a share. The payout is in USD/USDC at a liquidity event, and is also tradeable on the INX exchange after a one-year lock up. There’s a 2.5% administrative fee when using Republic. Right now, Mirror Tokens reference heavyweight companies like Anthropic, Databricks, Epic Games, Ramp, Perplexity, and ByteDance. These are top companies to get into. Before using Republic, understand that it only offers a tokenized debt note from RepublicX that’s tied to the company’s value. So, you enjoy the company’s rise, but you don’t have any right or ownership. 

Bitget IPO Prime lets non-US investors buy tokenized exposure to companies like Anthropic and OpenAI from 100 USDT, with no accreditation or management fees. Republic issues the underlying debt note. After the company IPOs, holders wait 6 months, then receive payout in USD. Tokens also trade on Bitget spot exchange same day, so you’re not locked in for years. 

PreStocks is a Solana-based company that issues tokens that track the price of private companies like Anduril, Anthropic, and OpenAI, backed by 1:1 SPV exposure. Unlike most pre-IPO platforms, PreStocks has no minimums and trading runs 24/7 on the Jupiter DEX. Lots of crypto native investors currently use PreStocks. As of June 2026, the platform has over 25,000 holders and $1.39B in trading volume. On PreStocks, there’s no KYC for peer-to-peer trades. However, you need KYC for minting and redeeming. There are no management or performance fees.

Jarsy offers the simplest onboarding for new investors with its user-friendly interface and tokenized shares of companies like Anthropic for just $10. Each token is backed 1;1 by economic rights of real shares that Jarsy holds. Jarsy’s interface works like online shopping. You sign up, complete an easy KYC, and browse through their offerings. There’s a platform fee plus carried interest on some deals.

Kraken xStocks is not a pre-IPO platform. Instead, xStocks are tokenized versions of already public stocks and ETFs, each backed 1:1 by a real share held in custody and issued as an on-chain token. Kraken xStocks suits investors who want to trade a public stock in tokenized form, with the flexibility cryptocurrencies offer. The platform supports fractional buys for as little as $1, and 24/5 trading on the Kraken exchange. In terms of fees, there are no trading fees when you buy with USD or USDG, but a built-in spread could apply. A standard fee applies if you buy with other cryptos.  Kraken xStocks gives you exposure only, with no ownership rights. xStocks isn’t available in the U.S., Australia, Canada or the U.K.

Not every investor wants pre-IPO tokens. Some prefer the real thing: actual shares from a private company, with ownership rights, regulatory protection, and cap-table positions. These are perks that pre-IPO tokens do not come with. If you’re such an investor, here are the best traditional alternatives to pre-IPO tokens.

With Forge, accredited investors can buy shares directly from existing shareholders, either as direct secondary transactions or via fund units. If you’re going for the direct deals, Forge has a standard minimum of $100,000. However, limited fund opportunities can start as low as $5,000. Fees on Forge are based on a success model, meaning you only pay after a transaction. Direct-secondary commissions are typically between 2-4% ( sometimes as low as 0%). 

Hiive is a private-share marketplace with a standout feature, which is live, transparent pricing. Overall, Hiive is an active marketplace, with over $250M in monthly transaction volume and more than $2B in live securities. Hiive has a minimum transaction standard of $25,000. The fees on Hiive are based on a success-only commission model, meaning you don’t pay until the deal closes. Buyers pay up to 4.85%, which can drop if the transaction exceeds $250,000. Sellers, on the other hand, pay up to 5.75%, which drops for deals above $500,000. 

EquityZen is best suited for first-time accredited investors entering the private market. With EquityZen, you buy into pre-IPO companies via single-company or multi-company funds. This means you do not have to hunt individual shares. You invest in a fund that holds them. The structure of EquityZen is transparent. The standard minimum is $10,000. Some deals are available at $5,000, which is still a good entry point compared to Forge’s numbers. In terms of fees, EquityZen charges a one-time, tiered sales fee of around 2.5% on investments up to $1 million. However, the figure drops to 2% above $1 million. There’s no carried interest or recurring management fee on non-actively managed funds, which makes it cleaner than some rivals.

For most of the platforms on our list, the answer is no. U.S. securities law treats pre-IPO tokens as unregistered securities, and each platform must comply with these rules, which limits who can join. Platforms like PreStocks, Kraken xStocks, and Bitget IPO Prime follow a rule called Regulation S, which means their offering is only for people outside the U.S

On the other hand, traditional platforms like Hiive, Forge, and EquityZen are open to Americans. However, investors must be accredited, meaning you must have an income above $200,000 ($300,000) with a spouse) or a net worth above $1 million excluding your income.

The only rule that allows regular, everyday investors to invest is called Regulation CF, which is what Republic uses to allow almost everyone access to the private market. However, you still have to check each offering to see if you qualify. 

See this eligibility table to understand which platform is open to U.S. investors.

This is one of the core things investors must understand because what happens when a company IPOs depends on how it structured its product. Before an IPO, a pre-IPO token tracks a company’s private valuation. The token price goes up if demand increases and the company raises funding at a high valuation. But pricing here is based on market sentiment and not a live exchange.

Once the company goes public, the whole setup changes. This is where a real market price appears. Now, there are four common options for investors at this stage, depending on the platform:

• Some platforms offer cash redemption, paying you at the IPO share price
• Some offer a settlement payment that allows holders to receive payment based on a contract after a lock-up period
• In some cases, the token converts into a tokenized public stock
• Some platforms allow continued trading

Although pre-IPO tokens are a good way to position early on some of the most profitable private companies, they are not risk-free, and you should know and understand these risks before choosing any platform.