Original|Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author|Wenser(@wenser 2010)
Not long ago, Mysten Labs CEO evan.sui shared his views on the "bear market." He mentioned that he does not agree with the notion that "the bear market is great, just keep building." In fact, the bear market is not "great"; packaging it as good for everyone overlooks the real costs (such as discouraging builders and users). Many retail investors and excellent teams face cash flow problems and are forced to exit, ultimately harming the long-term development of the crypto industry.
However, data evidence does not align with this view. A report released by Lattice VC in October 2024 showed that over 80% of crypto startups that announced seed round funding during the 2022 bear market were still building at that time. In other words, if project teams can ensure relatively stable personnel and funding, the bear market is more conducive to project development and growth. The reasons might be that during a bear market, project teams focus more on product development and experience optimization; or perhaps the bear market hones the project teams' abilities to survive through various means. In any case, being in a crypto bear market, determined startup teams might find opportunities in adversity and carve out their own path to development.
In light of this, we will use a series of articles titled "Crypto Bear Market Startup Guide" to explore potential entrepreneurial tracks and project directions with our readers. If any crypto projects emerge and grow rapidly as a result in the future, Odaily Planet Daily also welcomes project teams to discuss cooperation.
Today, let's first discuss one of the hottest potential entrepreneurial directions besides prediction markets—the pre-market price spread market for tokenized stocks.
The Real Demand for Tokenized Stock Pre-Market: Platform Differentiation and Liquidity Bridge
As an intermediate bridge connecting the crypto market with traditional financial markets, tokenized stock trading platforms have not only attracted high attention and active participation from crypto project teams but have also seen involvement from global leading securities platforms including Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange, aiming to capture incremental markets while further activating liquidity in traditional financial markets.
Furthermore, not only have listed cryptocurrency concept stocks undergone tokenization and on-chain contract transformation, but many pre-IPO hot concept stocks have also garnered enthusiasm from both crypto and traditional financial markets, giving rise to several pre-market stock tokenization trading platforms.
Considering that the capital market is about to welcome a wave of U.S. stock listings this year, including OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX (xAI), Kalshi, Polymarket, OKX, Kraken, and a series of AI model companies, commercial aerospace companies, prediction market platforms, and crypto exchanges, there is no doubt that 2026 is destined to be a "big year for IPOs."
Against the backdrop of a fluctuating and occasionally rebounding crypto market and a consistently rising stock market, the热度 of the pre-market stock trading further supports the above view—there is strong demand from both crypto and traditional financial markets for pre-market trading of hot concept stocks.
This is the main reason for the emergence of pre-market stock trading platforms such as PreStocks, Jarsy, Tessera, and others. Additionally, compared to traditional financial market pre-market trading platforms like Hiive and Nasdaq Private Market, crypto pre-market trading platforms offer more flexible trading methods, purchase limits, and entry barriers, with relatively higher premiums, which attracts many users to participate enthusiastically.
However, just as the same token can have different prices on different exchanges, before mechanisms like oracles are introduced into the pre-market stock market, regardless of the reason, we can clearly see that different platforms have certain price differences for the same underlying stock.
Based on the above information, we can somewhat boldly conclude—the crypto market still lacks one or more "bridge platforms between pre-market stock trading platforms."
This might be a necessary step in advancing the tokenization of stocks and the tokenization of pre-market stock markets—a unified comprehensive platform covering pre-market trading in traditional financial markets and pre-market trading in crypto markets.
Below, we will use the two leading prediction market platforms, Kalshi and Polymarket, which are seeking $20 billion in funding, and SpaceX (xAI), valued at $1.25 trillion, as examples to explore the feasibility and real demand of this "entrepreneurial direction."
Comparing Pre-Market Price Spreads on PreStocks, Jarsy, Tessera: Maximum Spread Rate Exceeds 50%, Price Difference Up to Nearly $150
Kalshi Pre-Market Spread: Up to $148, Spread Rate Around 37%
Taking the Kalshi pre-market as an example, its prices on different platforms are as follows—
PreStocks platform, the pre-market price of the stock token is around $397; (compared to the $369 we mentioned one month ago in the article "Kalshi Trading Volume Continues to Hit New Highs, What Is a Reasonable Pre-IPO Stock Price?", it has increased by nearly $30, a rise of 7.6%)
Jarsy platform, the pre-market price is quoted at around $545. (compared to the $504 we mentioned one month ago in the article "Kalshi Trading Volume Continues to Hit New Highs, What Is a Reasonable Pre-IPO Stock Price?", it has increased by over $40, a rise of 8.1%)
In other words, the price difference for Kalshi's pre-market stock on the two major trading platforms is as high as $148 (Odaily Planet Daily Note: Considering that the two platforms use order book trading mechanisms and on-chain liquidity token trading mechanisms respectively, we are only making an abstract comparison here, temporarily not involving specific asset settlement forms, same below). If calculated based on the $360 price on the traditional financial market pre-market trading platform Hiive, the pre-market price difference even reaches $185.
Polymarket Pre-Market Spread: Up to $94, Spread Rate Over 50%
Taking the Polymarket pre-market as an example, its prices on different platforms are as follows—
PreStocks platform, the pre-market price of the stock token is around $186 (Odaily Planet Daily Note: up 23% in the past 30 days);
Jarsy platform, the pre-market price is quoted at around $280.
In other words, the price difference for Polymarket's pre-market stock on the two major platforms is about $94, with a spread rate of approximately 50.5%.
SpaceX(xAI) Pre-Market Spread: About $75, Spread Rate 12.7%
Taking SpaceX(xAI) as an example, its prices on different platforms are as follows—
PreStocks platform, the pre-market price of the stock token is around $666 (Odaily Planet Daily Note: up 4.1% in the past 30 days);
Tessera platform, the pre-market price of the stock token is temporarily reported at around $591 (Odaily Planet Daily Note: up about 14.5% in the past 30 days).
In other words, the price difference for SpaceX's pre-market stock on the two major platforms is about $75, with a spread rate of approximately 12.7%.
In summary, based on existing pre-market trading platforms, it might be possible to build a pre-market price spread market for tokenized stocks to meet market trading and speculation demands after securing sufficient pre-market tokens or pre-market equity capital.
Of course, considering that the current market liquidity remains within the million-dollar range, the main business model of this platform might focus on transaction fees, LP fees, and realizing price differences from the platform's own investment quotas, among other aspects.
