“Pre-IPO” refers to a company that is still private, before it has held an initial public offering and listed its shares on a public stock exchange. The most valuable companies of this era are staying private far longer than they used to, so most of their growth now happens before any public listing. Historically that upside has been reachable only by venture funds, insiders, and accredited investors with access to private secondary markets, where shares are illiquid, gated, and expensive to trade.

PreIPO opens that market. Each PreIPO token is a synthetic instrument that references the per-share value of a single private company and trades freely 24/7 on Aerodrome on Base, priced in USDC, with no accreditation, minimums, or lockup on the token itself. A token is not a share and confers no ownership of, or claim on, any share.

PreIPO launches with the companies defining the AI era, frontier labs like Anthropic and OpenAI and AI-defense companies like Anduril and Saronic, because that is where private-market demand is most concentrated today. The model is not limited to AI, though: any high-growth private company on a credible path to a liquidity event can be referenced, and the roster is expected to broaden over time.

Oracle pricing for pre-IPO assets is currently fragmented and unreliable. Reference prices diverge widely across sources: funding-round marks lag by months, mutual-fund marks are published quarterly, and secondary-market quotes are sparse, gated, and often stale, leaving derivative venues without a robust, manipulation-resistant price feed.

Spot trading solves this at the source. Continuous, transparent, on-chain price discovery in these tokens produces a live market-clearing price for each company. PreIPO blends that traded spot price with independent inputs (institutional fund marks, primary funding rounds, and private-market venue data) into a composite oracle that is materially more accurate and more responsive than any single source.

That oracle, in turn, strengthens the broader Opal ecosystem: reliable reference pricing is the foundation for derivatives, collateralization, and risk management on pre-IPO assets.

Sequencing. The Opal perps exchange is still in beta, and we are working through the remaining steps to make it production-ready. Launching pre-IPO markets there before the venue itself is ready would serve no one.

There is also a hard dependency: derivatives need a reliable oracle. A perps market cannot run safely without a robust, manipulation-resistant reference price, and as covered above, no such feed exists today for private companies. Spot trading comes first precisely because it creates one: continuous on-chain price discovery in the tokens, blended with independent private-market inputs, produces the composite oracle a derivatives market requires.

As for a first-party spot exchange: a spot venue is a whole separate product, with its own liquidity, market-making, and operational demands. Opal is focused on building the best perps exchange, so rather than split that focus, we partner with Aerodrome, the leading spot exchange in the Base ecosystem, to host these markets where the liquidity already is.

Pre-IPO companies are planned as day-one listings when the perps venue reaches production, so the spot markets need time to run and prove the oracle out beforehand. Once both are live, they will operate side by side: spot on Aerodrome for synthetic exposure, perps on Opal for leveraged trading on the same reference prices, each subject to its own terms and eligibility restrictions.

Anthropic is available to trade now. OpenAI is up next, with Project Prometheus, Anduril, and Saronic to follow. All are private AI companies: frontier labs and AI defense.

No. PreIPO tokens are synthetic instruments that provide economic exposure only. They confer no ownership, voting, dividend, information, or other legal rights in any referenced company or its securities, and the referenced companies are not affiliated with PreIPO in any way.

PreIPO is not available in the United States, to US persons, or to persons in other prohibited jurisdictions listed in the Terms of Service. Anyone can browse the site; trading is gated by region.

One token is a synthetic contractual obligation of the issuer that references the per-share value of the referenced company. It is not a share and confers no ownership of, or claim on, any share. After the company completes an IPO and the standard post-IPO lockup period (typically about six months) expires, each token becomes redeemable for an amount referenced to the then-current per-share value, paid in USDC.

1. Buy the token: it trades freely on-chain, no minimums.

2. The company IPOs: the token keeps trading and the redemption clock starts.

3. The lockup expires: after the standard post-IPO lockup (typically ~6 months), the redemption window opens.

4. Redeem in USDC: each token redeems for an amount referenced to the per-share value at redemption; redeemed tokens are burned.

Redemption is entirely optional. Tokens trade continuously on-chain throughout the lifecycle, so holders can exit at the prevailing market price at any time (before the IPO, during the lockup, or after the redemption window opens) without ever redeeming.

You buy 1 token while the company is private. The company later IPOs, and six months after listing the lockup expires. If the per-share reference value is $40 at redemption, your token redeems for 40 USDC.

You never have to redeem. You can also sell the token on-chain at any time at the market price.

The lockup is not something Opal imposes; it follows from the assets the token references. Almost every share issued by a private company before its IPO is subject to a transfer restriction, and a post-IPO lockup of roughly 180 days is the market standard. Because the token’s redemption value is referenced to the per-share value of such shares, its redemption timeline necessarily follows the same restriction.

These restrictions exist for several reasons. Founders, employees, and early investors typically receive shares under agreements (and, for employees, equity-plan and Rule 144 restrictions on unregistered securities) that contractually bar transfer until a liquidity event. At IPO, underwriters require a lockup agreement, usually 180 days, so that a flood of insider selling does not destabilize the newly public stock while the market establishes a price. Every class of pre-IPO stock is subject to it: the preferred shares early VCs bought in priced rounds, the common stock founders and employees hold, and every other share issued before the offering. None are exempt.

Practically, this means the per-share value a token references cannot be reliably crystallized until the lockup expires and the underlying shares become freely transferable, which is also when the issuer’s exposure positions can be cleanly monetized. The token keeps trading on-chain throughout, so holders who do not want to wait can exit at the prevailing market price at any time; the lockup governs only the redemption path, not the ability to sell.

PreIPO tokens are purely synthetic instruments. They do not represent ownership of, or any claim on, shares in any referenced company. No token holder has any right, title, or interest in any referenced company or its securities.

To meet its redemption obligations, PreIPO maintains a portfolio of exposure-bearing instruments sized against outstanding token supply. These instruments may include, without limitation: long positions in perpetual futures contracts on third-party venues, positions in crypto tokens whose value tracks the referenced company, interests in special-purpose vehicles, and other derivative or synthetic arrangements. The specific composition of this portfolio is determined solely by PreIPO and may change at any time without notice.

These instruments are held by PreIPO as issuer, not on behalf of or in trust for token holders. Token holders have no claim on, and no visibility into, the specific instruments held.

When a redemption event occurs, PreIPO liquidates a portion of its exposure portfolio and uses the proceeds to fund redemption payouts at the applicable per-share reference value, settled in USDC. The redemption value is referenced to, but not derived from direct ownership of, the underlying company’s shares.

Tokens are contractual obligations of PreIPO as issuer. They are not securities, equity interests, or investment contracts. They do not entitle holders to dividends, voting rights, or any other rights associated with share ownership. PreIPO tokens are available to non-US persons only, and are not offered to or for the benefit of US persons as defined under Regulation S of the US Securities Act of 1933.

Yes. Holders can request an independent audit of the exposure portfolio behind their tokens. The audit confirms, in aggregate, that the exposure exists and is sized against outstanding token supply — without disclosing the specific instruments held — giving holders verifiable assurance that redemption obligations can be met.

Because these reports disclose sensitive information and the review carries meaningful overhead, access is gated. To request an audit, a holder must hold a material amount of the relevant token, cover the associated legal and audit fees, and complete KYC before the information is released.

Supply is not fixed because exposure is not fixed. As PreIPO acquires additional exposure to a referenced company — for example by adding perpetual-futures positions, exposure tokens, or interests in special-purpose vehicles — it mints new tokens against that incremental exposure. Minting is therefore a function of exposure acquired, not a discretionary lever pulled to dilute holders.

This is what lets the market scale to meet demand. Without the ability to mint, the only way to add liquidity would be for existing holders to sell, and the token could drift to an arbitrary premium over the value it references. Tying new supply to newly acquired exposure keeps the token anchored to the per-share value it references while allowing more participants to gain access.

The constraint is that supply stays sized against exposure. New tokens are only minted against exposure that has actually been acquired, so outstanding supply tracks the exposure portfolio at all times. That relationship is verifiable: as described above, holders can request an independent audit confirming that the exposure exists and is sized against outstanding supply, and on-chain token supply is itself public. Minting expands access without weakening the exposure behind any individual token.

The token price itself is set by open-market trading on Aerodrome: continuous, on-chain price discovery in USDC, around the clock.

Alongside it, each company page publishes a mark price: a reference valuation synthesized from private-market data, including institutional secondary-market transactions, mutual-fund marks disclosed in regulatory filings, primary funding-round pricing, and quotes from other pre-IPO trading venues. The mark is refreshed daily.

The spread between the two is shown as the token’s premium or discount to mark. A token trading below mark reflects, among other things, the time value and uncertainty of the redemption path; a token trading above it reflects demand for liquid, accessible exposure.

The mark price is an indicative reference valuation of one share of the referenced company, published daily for transparency alongside the token’s open-market trading price. It is computed by synthesizing independent indicators of per-share value drawn from private-market sources; it is not an executable quote, an offer, a bid, or a guarantee of redemption value.

Inputs to the mark include, among others: arm’s-length secondary-market transactions in the company’s shares reported by private-market trading venues and brokers; the implied per-share valuation of interests in special-purpose vehicles (SPVs) holding such shares; valuation marks disclosed in the regulatory filings of registered funds that hold the company; primary funding-round pricing; and clearing prices and quotations from pre-IPO derivatives venues, including perpetual-futures markets such as Hyperliquid.

These inputs are weighted and blended into a single composite mark under a consistent methodology, with stale, illiquid, or outlier observations down-weighted or excluded. Because the mark is indicative only, the token may trade at a premium or discount to it, and nothing herein constitutes investment, financial, or valuation advice.

The whole point of the token is to track the real per-share value of the private company. If the price drifted far away from that value, the token would stop being a useful way to get exposure, so keeping the two in line is what protects you as a holder.

Two forces keep it honest. If the token gets too expensive (trading well above the company's real value), PreIPO acquires more exposure and sells more tokens into that demand, and other traders can do the same. The extra supply pushes the price back down.

If the token gets too cheap (trading below the real value), it becomes a bargain, so buyers step in to scoop it up. That buying pushes the price back up.

Either way, anyone trying to push the price away from real value just creates an opportunity for someone else to trade against them and pull it back. That constant pressure from both sides is what keeps the token anchored to what the company is actually worth, so the price you buy and sell at stays honest.

Redemption is not solely contingent on an IPO. Any liquidity event affecting the referenced company (an acquisition, merger, tender offer, buyout, or other corporate transaction that crystallizes a per-share value) is treated as a redemption event: token holders become entitled to redeem at an amount referenced to the per-share consideration established by that transaction, settled in USDC.

In a dissolution or wind-down, redemption value would correspond to the per-share liquidation proceeds, which may be substantially reduced or zero.

If the company simply remains private indefinitely with no liquidity event, tokens continue to trade on-chain at market price but have no fixed maturity. Redemption remains open-ended, and holders should size positions with that duration risk in mind.

All settlement is in USDC on Base, a single, liquid, dollar-denominated settlement asset.

The fee exists because acquiring and holding the exposure behind the tokens is itself expensive. That exposure is sourced through secondary marketplaces, special-purpose vehicles, and other private-market venues, and those venues are not free.

Secondary marketplaces typically charge transaction fees in the range of 5–10% to source and settle private-market positions. Special-purpose vehicles and fund structures commonly layer on their own economics: management fees of around 2% per year and carried interest of up to 20% of gains on the underlying positions.

Opal’s fee covers these third-party costs together with the legal, custody, and operational overhead of maintaining the exposure portfolio and honoring redemptions. In other words, the fee is what makes it possible to offer a single, liquid, USDC-settled token in place of the fragmented and costly process of acquiring the underlying exposure directly.

Today that fee is 2–5%. It varies by company, driven primarily by how difficult the underlying exposure is to access: tightly held names with limited secondary supply cost more to source than those with deeper private-market liquidity. The specific fee applicable to each token is disclosed in the PreIPO interface at the point of trade.

No. Tokens are synthetic instruments — contractual obligations of the issuer that reference the per-share value of a company. They are not shares, options, warrants, securities, or any claim on the issuer or the referenced company, and they carry no voting, dividend, information, or governance rights. You are trading the price of a token and a contractual promise of a future USDC payment.

No. PreIPO is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or issued by Anthropic, OpenAI, Project Prometheus, Anduril, Saronic, or any other referenced company. Company names and marks are used for identification only.

PreIPO tokens are not offered to US persons and are unavailable in the United States and its territories, alongside other prohibited jurisdictions listed in the Terms of Service. Visitors from blocked regions can browse the site, but trading actions are disabled.

Total loss of value; issuer and counterparty credit risk (tokens are unsecured contractual obligations of the issuer); no IPO or other liquidity event ever occurring; redemption delays; liquidity risk on secondary markets; smart-contract risk; and price divergence between the token and private-market marks. Nothing on this site is investment, financial, legal, or tax advice.