史上最大IPO潮要来了，币圈的钱会被SpaceX和OpenAI抽走吗？

The US IPO market is reopening.

This time, the market isn't just seeing a wave of ordinary tech companies going public, but a cohort of mega-cap firms poised to reshape the scale of global primary markets: SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks, along with a number of crypto-native and fintech companies.

For traditional markets, this marks the reopening of the IPO window; for the crypto industry, it could represent a different form of liquidity competition.

That's because today's crypto market is no longer the fully self-contained market of 2020. Stablecoins, ETFs, publicly listed mining companies, Coinbase, Circle, Kraken, Robinhood, and MicroStrategy have bridged the on-chain market with the US stock market. Global risk capital is searching for yield from the same dollar pool: buying BTC ETFs, or AI stocks; buying new tokens with high FDV, or "super narrative assets" like SpaceX and OpenAI.

Therefore, a core question surrounding this year's US IPO boom is: when more mainstream, compliant, and institutionally deployable high-volatility assets begin listing en masse, will the long-term risk appetite that the crypto industry most relies on get squeezed?

The US IPO Window Reopens

In the first quarter of 2026, the US IPO market wasn't particularly hot. Renaissance Capital's Q1 review noted that there were 35 IPOs in the US in Q1, raising approximately $9.9 billion, with the recovery delayed by volatility.

However, the atmosphere warmed significantly entering Q2. By mid-May, the pace of IPO filings and offerings had accelerated. Kiplinger, citing Renaissance Capital data, reported that as of May 13, there have been 93 IPO filings this year, with 57 completed offerings raising a total of approximately $20.7 billion, an 86% increase year-over-year.

That's not the main point.

What's truly prompting the market to reprice this IPO boom is the public filing by SpaceX, followed by AI giants like OpenAI and Anthropic. Reuters reported that SpaceX aims to raise approximately $75 billion, at a valuation near $2 trillion. If it materializes, it would not only surpass historical IPOs like Saudi Aramco, Alibaba, and SoftBank but could also become the single largest IPO in the history of global capital markets.

If one were to characterize this year's US IPO boom, we'd call it "The Dance of the Killer Whales."

The Dance of the Killer Whales

SpaceX's Starship

At the core is SpaceX.

According to Reuters and various media reports, SpaceX is in the final sprint towards its IPO, targeting a valuation between approximately $1.75 trillion and $2 trillion, with a potential fundraising size of $50 billion to $75 billion. These figures are staggering in any market: Saudi Aramco's 2019 IPO raised about $29.4 billion, Alibaba's 2014 US IPO raised about $25 billion, and SpaceX's target could be two to three times that.

SpaceX's uniqueness lies in its nature as more than a single-business company. The market isn't just buying "rocket launches," but a blend of Starlink, satellite internet, deep-space transport, AI data centers, defense contracts, and Elon Musk's personal credibility. It resembles a super narrative collection more than a company easily explained by traditional financial models.

The second is OpenAI.

According to the WSJ and Reuters, OpenAI is preparing for a confidential IPO filing, with market expectations suggesting a valuation potentially reaching the trillion-dollar level. OpenAI's significance extends beyond ChatGPT; it represents the pricing anchor for the entire AI application layer, model layer, and enterprise software gateway. Once OpenAI goes public, the US stock market will have its first truly core asset representing a "pure AI model platform."

The third is Anthropic.

Anthropic has frequently appeared in fundraising and IPO rumors this year. Market reports indicate Anthropic is discussing massive financing rounds with valuations potentially reaching hundreds of billions of dollars or higher, and is considered one of the AI companies that could go public later this year. Compared to OpenAI, Anthropic leans more towards the enterprise, compliance, safety, and large customer market. If it lists, investors will likely view it as a direct comparison to OpenAI.

The fourth category includes mature unicorns like Databricks, Klarna, and Chime.

While these companies may not match the scale of SpaceX or OpenAI, they represent another direction: after the valuation compression of 2022-2024, high-quality private tech companies are re-testing the public markets. Databricks is a representative of AI data infrastructure, while Klarna and Chime serve as bellwethers for fintech's return to the IPO market.

The fifth category is crypto companies.

Circle completed its listing in 2025, proving that the market is willing to price stablecoin businesses. Kraken has also seen repeated IPO-related progress this year, and though the pace has fluctuated with market conditions, crypto companies going public is no longer a marginal event. For the crypto industry, this signifies a shift: narratives that once unfolded on-chain are being re-securitized on the US stock market.

Impact of the IPO Wave on the Crypto Industry

Superficially, US IPOs and crypto liquidity seem unrelated.

SpaceX's listing won't directly force investors to redeem USDT; subscribing to OpenAI's offering won't automatically lead to a decline in on-chain TVL. However, within a dollar-dominated global risk asset market, they compete for the same thing: risk budget.

Especially the most vulnerable part of the crypto industry isn't BTC or ETH, but long-tail assets.

The crypto market isn't entirely short of money. DeFiLlama data shows the total stablecoin market cap has exceeded $320 billion, near historic highs. The problem is that this money increasingly looks less like "long-term buying" and more like "standby funds."

CoinDesk Research's April 2026 Exchange Review shows that spot trading volume on centralized exchanges in April fell to approximately $1.05 trillion, down 14% month-over-month, the lowest since November 2023. Total combined spot and derivatives volume was approximately $4.61 trillion, falling for the fourth consecutive month. Meanwhile, derivatives' share of total trading volume rose to around 77%, with open interest remaining high.

This indicates the crypto industry hasn't lost its risk appetite, but that appetite is becoming "shortsighted."

Funds are willing for BTC, ETH, ETF arbitrage, perpetual contracts, and short-cycle volatility, but unwilling to hold high-FDV new coins long-term, unwilling to lock up capital, or pay upfront for use cases years away. In other words, money is still in the market, but its duration has shortened.

This is precisely the pressure that mega US IPOs could bring.

If the market sees assets like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic listing simultaneously this year, capital will naturally make comparisons: when buying into future narratives, high valuations, and high volatility, why not choose the more mainstream, compliant, and institutionally deployable AI and space assets?

For the crypto industry, the impact may not manifest as an immediate drop in stablecoin market cap, but rather through three more subtle changes:

First, altcoin rallies are becoming shorter and less sustainable.

Second, the ability to absorb new token listings is decreasing, especially for projects with high FDV and low circulating supply.

Third, market attention is shifting from on-chain narratives to mega US IPOs, leaving only BTC, ETH, stablecoins, and a few proxy assets correlated with US stocks with liquidity.

This isn't a traditional "liquidity crisis," but a crisis more familiar to the crypto space: there's money, but no one wants to take the other side of your trade.

Nasdaq's New Rules Make IPOs More Like Black Holes

Another structural change that is easily overlooked this year is Nasdaq-100's "fast-track" inclusion mechanism.

New Nasdaq rules effective May 1, 2026, state that qualifying large newly listed companies, if their market cap ranks among the top 40 Nasdaq-100 components and meets other conditions, can be included in the index as early as 15 trading days after listing.

This means that a mega-IPO like SpaceX wouldn't just attract active funds on its listing day, but could also quickly trigger passive fund buying. ETFs and index funds tracking the Nasdaq-100 would need to adjust their holdings within a very short timeframe.

This has two implications for the market.

On one hand, it enhances the appeal of mega-IPOs. Investors know that if a company is large enough, it could soon enter the index after listing, bringing in subsequent passive buying pressure.

On the other hand, it could amplify short-term capital crowding. Active funds, hedge funds, retail investors, and passive ETFs will all be trading the same stock around the same time window. For companies the size of SpaceX or OpenAI, this mechanism transforms an IPO from a primary market event into a rebalancing event for the entire tech stock market.

This is why this year's IPO boom is more important for crypto: it's not just a few companies going public, but the US stock market building new liquidity pipelines specifically for these firms.

Is an IPO Frenzy a Top Signal?

Looking only at US stock market history, isolated cases of single large IPOs directly triggering systemic liquidity crises are not typical.

Instead, a different pattern emerges: IPO frenzies often occur near the peak of risk appetite.

Before 1929, the US market saw an investment trust boom. A wave of new financial products and new stock issuances absorbed retail capital, fueling the bubble alongside leverage and margin trading. It wasn't a single IPO that caused the Great Depression, but the new issue frenzy was part of the loss of risk appetite control at the time.

Crowds gathering on Wall Street after the stock market crash of 1929

The dot-com bubble of 1999-2000 was similar. Numerous internet companies without profits, or even mature business models, went public, with IPO pops becoming commonplace. WilmerHale's IPO report shows that US IPO count reached 537 in 1999, raising approximately $95.3 billion. In Q1 2000, internet-related companies accounted for 60% of IPO volume. Subsequently, the Nasdaq crashed, and the IPO window closed rapidly.

2021 is a more recent example. Renaissance Capital data showed 397 US IPOs in 2021 raising a total of $142.4 billion, one of the largest fundraising years on record; including SPACs, the frenzy was even more extreme. Rivian, Robinhood, Coinbase, and numerous software and consumer internet companies listed in a concentrated period. But by 2022, with rising interest rates, growth stock valuation compression, and the SPAC unwinding, the new issue market quickly cooled.

This history suggests: an IPO frenzy is like a thermometer.

When the market is willing to assign ever-higher valuations to increasingly distant narratives, and when primary market assets begin to flood into the secondary market, it often indicates liquidity has entered its most risk-tolerant phase. Subsequently, once interest rates, earnings expectations, or risk appetite reverse, the IPO boom can transform from a "money magnet" into a "top signal."

When a Bigger Gambling Table Opens

The biggest change in the crypto industry over the past two years has been institutionalization.

BTC ETFs transformed Bitcoin into an asset within stock accounts; Circle's listing turned stablecoins into stock market assets; Coinbase, Robinhood, mining companies, and MicroStrategy packaged crypto beta as US stock beta. Now, SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are poised to pull "future tech narratives" back into the US stock market.

This means the competitive landscape for the crypto industry has changed.

In the past, altcoins only had to compete with other on-chain assets for liquidity. Today, they must compete for the same pool of dollar risk budgets alongside BTC ETFs, AI stocks, space stocks, stablecoin stocks, exchange stocks, and Nasdaq-100 passive funds.

In a strong liquidity environment, this is not a problem. US stocks rise, BTC rises, and altcoins can also rise. But if liquidity contracts at the margin, capital will first gravitate towards the deepest, most compliant, and most easily exited assets.

This is why this year's US IPO boom is crucial for the crypto industry.

It won't simply create a "liquidity crisis," but it could further alter the internal capital structure of the crypto space: BTC and ETH act more like macro assets, stablecoins more like cash management tools, exchanges and stablecoin companies become US stock assets, and long-tail altcoins become increasingly reliant on short-term sentiment and niche narratives.

In the coming months, judging the impact of this IPO wave on the crypto industry shouldn't just rely on whether total stablecoin market cap falls. Instead, one should watch more sensitive indicators:

Can spot trading volume recover? Will the derivatives share continue to stay high? Will BTC dominance continue to suppress altcoins? Will first-week absorption after new token listings continue to weaken? Is there real buying pressure when high-FDV projects have unlocks?

If these indicators continue to deteriorate, the impact of mega US IPOs on the crypto industry won't be a one-time liquidity drain, but a further compression of the market's capital duration.

For the crypto industry, the real question isn't "will these IPOs suck out all the stablecoins?" but rather: when the US stock market offers more mainstream high-volatility narratives, can on-chain long-tail assets still retain the capital willing to pay for distant future stories?

If the answer is no, then this year's IPO boom may not become a liquidity crisis for US stocks, but it could become a duration crisis for the crypto industry's altcoin market.