SpaceX's IPO shook the market by raising a staggering $75 billion, becoming the largest public offering in history. The shares were priced at $135 each on June 11 and opened on Nasdaq at $150 the following Friday morning. As the price reached $164, the IPO not only made headlines for its financial achievement but also exposed significant structural ambiguities in the world of tokenized equities offered on crypto platforms.

CryptoSlate highlights that products on platforms like Binance Stocks, Kraken, Bybit, Backpack Securities, and Hyperliquid each introduced varying degrees of equity-linked instruments. Backpack Securities' model was particularly notable, backing tokens 1:1 with real SpaceX shares, allowing holders to redeem tokens for actual shares. This model contrasts sharply with xStocks on Kraken and Bybit, which offer economic exposure without conferring actual shareholder rights. Binance's SPCXx subscription campaign underscored the massive demand, raising $557 million, yet also revealed allocation issues due to limited pre-IPO share availability.

Backpack's SPCX token on Solana stands out by being backed 1:1 by a real SpaceX share, purchased and held in custody by Backpack, a regulated U.S. broker-dealer. This model offers a redemption pathway through regulated brokerage infrastructure, making it the closest to direct share ownership. The Solana launch was timed to coincide with the Nasdaq debut, marking the first time a newly listed equity had a simultaneous on-chain market from day one. This demonstrates an attempt to make underlying securities portable across financial systems, as described by Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante.

Conversely, xStocks tokens function as tracker certificates, providing economic exposure to SpaceX's price without conveying shareholder or voting rights. Kraken's FAQ explicitly states that xStocks do not carry shareholder rights or any legal claim to the underlying company shares. Bybit's product terms further complicate the matter by stating that the collateral backing xStocks may not always consist of the underlying shares, with the possibility of substituting cash or other assets. Both platforms exclude users from major markets like the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, limiting accessibility.

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Hyperliquid's SPCX contracts present another layer of complexity. These cash-settled derivatives transition into equity-linked perpetual futures using the live Nasdaq price as an oracle once the stock lists. Unlike traditional stocks, these contracts offer no claim on the underlying company. Hyperliquid's contracts stayed about $12 to $26 above Nasdaq's range, driven by the forces of supply and demand without a redemption mechanism to anchor them, illustrating how detached these products can become from the actual stock price.

The allocation issues were most pronounced in the xStocks infrastructure. Binance Wallet's SPCXx subscription campaign, which raised $557 million from 27,689 wallet addresses, was one of the largest tokenized IPO campaigns ever. However, it was plagued by allocation challenges as the demand far exceeded the available supply. Kraken's growth team noted that the xStocks provider received a smaller pre-IPO allocation of SpaceX shares than expected, highlighting the risk that demand can outpace sourced supply.

Hyperliquid's SPCX contract, launched by Trade.xyz on May 18, generated $33 million in volume in its first 24 hours and peaked above $220, implying a SpaceX valuation far above its actual offering price. This discrepancy between the contract price and the real stock value exemplifies the potential volatility and disconnect inherent in such tokenized instruments.

As the market anticipates upcoming IPOs from tech giants like OpenAI and Databricks, the landscape of tokenized stocks is poised to face further tests. The SpaceX IPO has served as a critical examination of multiple tokenized equity structures operating simultaneously on the same underlying asset. Investors and traders in the crypto space must remain vigilant, understanding the specific nature of the tokenized stocks they are engaging with and the risks associated with each model.