Entering the pre-market, Pump.fun launches 8 major Pre-IPO tokens

Original | Odaily (@OdailyChina)

Author | Wenser (@wenser 2010 )

After more than a month, Pump.fun has once again rolled out new "assets" to the market—Pre-IPO tokens and paired issuance assets.

For this launch, Pump.fun has chosen to partner with PreStocks, a platform with a long track record in pre-market assets. The first batch of joint assets covers eight well-known companies: OpenAI, Anthropic, Anduril, Neuralink, Figure AI, Kalshi, Polymarket, and Oura.

In the battle for pricing power over pre-market assets, Pump.fun may have joined the fray a few steps later than Perp DEXs and CEXs, but it has now officially entered the arena. This also offers a glimpse into the current competitive landscape and trends among crypto trading platforms: staying in a niche is a thing of the past—the future belongs to all-asset, one-stop trading networks. (Recommended reading:"Revitalizing the Solana Ecosystem: Pump.fun Enters Tokenized Stock Meme Pairing")

Pump.fun Teams Up with PreStocks: Opening the Pre-Market Asset Trading Window and Racing for Asset Pricing Power

Let's start with the asset level. Pump.fun has selected pre-IPO equity assets on the PreStocks platform that are relatively popular and tied to the hottest sectors, trends, and figures of the moment. They fall into the following categories:

• OpenAI, Anthropic: AI giants;
• Anduril: defense hard-tech unicorn;
• Neuralink: Musk's brain-computer interface company;
• Figure AI: humanoid robotics giant;
• Kalshi, Polymarket: the two prediction market oligopolists;
• Oura: smart ring unicorn and current darling of the health & wellness sector, soon to IPO.

The PreStocks platform offers far more than these eight pre-market asset types, but these eight pre-market token assets are the "high-potential value targets" that Pump.fun carefully selected.

Next, from the asset attributes perspective: the equity (stock) tokens on the PreStocks platform are not equivalent to holding actual equity in the corresponding companies. In other words, these pre-market assets only provide economic exposure and do not grant holders stock ownership, voting rights, dividend rights, or information rights.

In addition, the collateral for such pre-market assets includes interests in SPVs (special purpose vehicles), funds, and custody arrangements; derivative/synthetic arrangements; cash, stablecoins, or other tokens. As a result, their market prices may deviate significantly from the actual valuation of the corresponding company's equity/shares or from other markets.

Finally, from the compliance perspective: these pre-market assets are not open to users in the United States and other jurisdictions. To some extent, this is also to avoid conflicts with the U.S. SEC's related "innovation exemption rules and TSV trading platform regulations."

In summary, Pump.fun's opening of trading in eight pre-market token assets and paired asset issuance serves two purposes: on one hand, it can bring in more tradable assets and enrich the platform's asset variety; on the other hand, the fees generated from paired tokens can fund PUMP token buybacks, further feeding back into the PUMP ecosystem and platform development. Beyond that, what's worth discussing is the "cooperation model" mentioned at the beginning of this article.

When Crypto Projects Upgrade to "Trading Networks": Behind the Growing Value of Entry Points, Self-Operated vs. Cooperative Models Diverge

Looking back at the "RWA asset trading narrative" of the past two years, one clear trend stands out: the value of trading entry points is steadily rising. Hyperliquid, Pump.fun, and numerous CEXs are gradually transforming from standalone trading platforms into "trading networks" that span crypto assets, traditional financial assets, pre-market stock tokens, and more, by integrating emerging assets and partnering with platforms.

Pump.fun's integration of PreStocks' eight pre-market assets can be seen as a sequel to its earlier integrations with xStocks and Sunrise for tokenized stock assets. Unlike CEXs such as Binance, Bybit, Bitget, and Gate, which have chosen a self-operated model—packaging RWA assets themselves and offering trading services on their own platforms—emerging crypto platforms like Hyperliquid and Pump.fun have chosen to compete via a "cooperative model."

Hyperliquid chose to build its own underlying infrastructure and then use HIP-3 and HIP-4 to attract ecosystem projects to build on-chain derivatives trading platforms and prediction market (outcome trading) products;

Pump.fun, meanwhile, chose to enter from the product integration angle, partnering with smaller platforms like xStocks, Sunrise, and PreStocks that have mature mechanisms and products in RWA and pre-market assets. It is gradually transitioning from a "meme coin launchpad" and "meme coin trading platform" to its ideal form as an "internet trend trading platform."

As a result, the value of entry points and front-ends has been greatly elevated—after all, users and market activity settle here. And for crypto projects with token buyback mechanisms and fee revenue, this is precisely where their advantage lies.

On the path toward "all-asset, one-stop trading networks," just like e-commerce platforms before them, self-operated and cooperative models may become the two main forms for crypto projects: the former is operations-heavy and tends to be the main battlefield for CEXs with large capital reserves and user bases; the latter focuses more on asset variety and innovative gameplay, making it the key arena for rising players like Hyperliquid, Pump.fun, and fomo.

But whichever route is chosen, one conclusion is becoming increasingly clear: whoever controls the entry point controls the future of the crypto market.