The U.S. stock market IPO scene is reopening.

This time, the market is not welcoming the typical tech company IPO frenzy but a group of giant companies significant enough to reshape the global primary market: SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks, along with a cohort of crypto-native companies and fintech firms.

For the traditional market, this is a reopening of the IPO window; for the crypto space, it could be another form of liquidity competition.

Because today's crypto market is no longer the completely closed-loop market of 2020. Stablecoins, ETFs, publicly traded mining firms, Coinbase, Circle, Kraken, Robinhood, MicroStrategy have bridged the gap between the on-chain market and the U.S. stock market. Global venture capital is seeking returns in the same dollar pool: one can buy BTC ETF or AI stocks, high FDV new coins or "super narrative assets" like SpaceX and OpenAI.

Therefore, a key question in this year's U.S. stock IPO frenzy is: as more mainstream, more compliant, and more easily institutionally allocable high-volatility assets hit the market, will the part of the crypto space that relies most on forward risk appetite be compressed?

U.S. Stock IPO Window Reopens

In the first quarter of 2026, the U.S. stock IPO market was not particularly hot. A review by Renaissance Capital for Q1 stated that there were a total of 35 IPOs in the U.S., raising approximately $9.9 billion, with market recovery temporarily delayed by volatility.

However, as we entered the second quarter, the atmosphere significantly heated up. By mid-May, both the pace of U.S. stock IPO filings and issuances had accelerated. According to Kiplinger citing Renaissance Capital data, as of May 13, there had been 93 IPO filings and 57 completed offerings this year, raising a total of about $20.7 billion, representing an 86% year-on-year increase.

But that's not the main point.

What truly reshaped the market and reignited the IPO frenzy was SpaceX's public IPO filing, followed by AI giants like OpenAI, Anthropic, and others. According to Reuters, SpaceX is targeting to raise around $75 billion, with a valuation close to $2 trillion. If successful, it would not only surpass historical IPOs like Saudi Aramco, Alibaba, SoftBank, but could also become the largest single IPO in global capital market history.

If there is a description to characterize this year's IPO frenzy in the U.S. stock market, the editor would like to call it "Whale Dance".

“Whale Dance”

SpaceX's Starship

The core of it all is SpaceX.

According to Reuters and multiple media reports, SpaceX has entered the IPO sprint stage with a target valuation of around $1.75 trillion to $2 trillion, and the potential fundraising scale could reach $500 billion to $750 billion. This number is extremely ambitious in any market: Saudi Aramco's 2019 IPO raised about $29.4 billion, Alibaba's 2014 U.S. IPO raised around $25 billion, and SpaceX's target may be two to three times that.

What makes SpaceX unique is that it is not a single-business company. The market is buying not just "rocket launches" but a combination of Starlink, satellite internet, deep space transportation, AI data centers, defense contracts, and Elon Musk's personal credit. It is more like a super narrative collection rather than a company that can be easily explained by a traditional financial model.

The second one is OpenAI.

According to WSJ and Reuters reports, OpenAI is preparing for a confidential IPO filing, with the market expecting its market valuation to reach the trillion-dollar level. The significance of OpenAI is not just ChatGPT but the entire AI application layer, model layer, and the pricing anchor for enterprise software entry. Once OpenAI goes public, the U.S. stock market will have, for the first time, a truly "pure AI model platform" as a core asset.

The third one is Anthropic.

Anthropic has been frequently mentioned in financing and IPO rumors this year. Market reports suggest that Anthropic is discussing a large financing round, with a valuation potentially entering the range of hundreds of billions or even higher and is seen as one of the AI companies most likely to go public later this year. Unlike OpenAI, Anthropic is more enterprise-focused, compliant, secure, and targeted at large customers. If it goes public, investors will see it as a direct comparable asset to OpenAI.

The fourth category consists of mature unicorns such as Databricks, Klarna, and Chime.

These companies may not have the same scale as SpaceX or OpenAI, but they represent another trend: after experiencing valuation compression from 2022 to 2024, high-quality private technology companies are once again exploring the public market. Databricks is the representative of AI data infrastructure, while Klarna and Chime indicate the return of fintech to the IPO market.

The fifth category is cryptocurrency companies.

Circle has already gone public in 2025, demonstrating that the market is willing to price stablecoin businesses. Kraken has also made several IPO-related advancements this year. Although the pace has been affected by market conditions, the IPO of crypto companies is no longer a fringe event. For the crypto industry, this signifies a change: the narrative that originally unfolded on the blockchain is now being securitized on the U.S. stock market.

Impact of the IPO Wave on the Crypto Industry

Superficially, U.S. stock market IPOs and crypto liquidity are not directly related.

An IPO by SpaceX does not require investors to redeem USDT, and the purchase of OpenAI shares does not automatically lead to a decline in on-chain TVL. However, in a U.S. dollar-dominated global risk asset market, they are competing for the same thing: risk capital.

Especially, the most fragile part of the crypto industry is not BTC or ETH but the long tail assets.

The current crypto market is not entirely without funds. DeFiLlama data shows that the total market value of stablecoins has exceeded $320 billion, near its all-time high. The issue is that this money is becoming less like "long-term hodlers" and more like "on-call funds."

CoinDesk Research's April 2026 Exchange Review shows that the spot trading volume of centralized exchanges in April dropped to around $1.05 trillion, a 14% decrease from the previous month and the lowest since November 2023; the total spot and derivative trading volume amounted to approximately $4.61 trillion, declining for the fourth consecutive month. However, at the same time, the proportion of derivatives in total trading volume has risen to around 77%, and open interest contracts remain high.

This indicates that the crypto industry does have risk appetite, but that risk appetite is becoming more "short-sighted."

Funds are willing to engage in BTC, ETH, ETF arbitrage, perpetual contracts, and short-term volatility, but are unwilling to hold new coins with high FDV in the long term, unwilling to lock up funds, and unwilling to pre-purchase for applications three years down the line. In other words, money is still in the game, but the duration has shortened.

This is exactly the kind of pressure a mega IPO in the US stock market could bring.

If this year the market sees assets like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic go public, there will naturally be a comparison of funds: why not buy more mainstream, compliant, and easily institutionally allocable AI and space assets when it's the same bet on a long-term story, the same bet on high valuation and high volatility?

For the cryptocurrency market, the impact may not necessarily be a immediate drop in stablecoin market cap, but it may be reflected in three finer changes:

First, altcoin rebounds are becoming shorter and less sustainable.

Second, decreased capacity to support new listings, especially for projects with high FDV and low circulating supply.

Third, market attention is shifting from on-chain narratives to US stock super IPOs, leaving the crypto space with only BTC, ETH, stablecoins, and a few liquidity-providing assets related to US stocks.

This is not a "liquidity crisis" in the traditional sense, but the type of crisis the crypto industry is more familiar with: having money but no one willing to take your offer.

The Nasdaq's New Rule Makes IPOs More Like Black Holes

There is another easily overlooked structural change this year: Nasdaq-100's "fast inclusion" mechanism.

A new Nasdaq rule effective as of May 1, 2026, shows that large newly listed companies meeting certain criteria, if they rank in the top 40 of the Nasdaq-100 by market cap and meet other conditions, can be included in the index as soon as 15 trading days after listing.

This means that mega IPOs like SpaceX will not only attract active funds on the listing day but could also quickly trigger passive fund buying. ETFs and index funds tracking the Nasdaq-100 will need to adjust their holdings in a very short period of time.

This has a dual impact on the market.

On one hand, it will increase the appeal of mega IPOs. Investors know that as long as the company is large enough, it may quickly enter the index after listing, with passive buying to follow.

On the other hand, it will also amplify short-term fund crowding. Active funds, hedge funds, retail investors, passive ETFs—all will be trading the same stock around the same time window. For companies like SpaceX and OpenAI, this mechanism will transform the IPO from a primary market event to a rebalancing event for the entire tech stock market.

This is also why this year's IPO frenzy is more important for the crypto industry: It's not just a few companies going public, but the U.S. stock market is preparing new liquidity channels for these companies.

Is the IPO Boom a Top Signal?

If we only look at U.S. stock market history, the case of a single large IPO directly triggering a systemic liquidity crisis is not typical.

Instead, another pattern can be observed: IPO booms often occur near the peak of risk appetite.

Prior to 1929, the U.S. market experienced an investment trust frenzy, with a large number of new financial products and IPOs absorbing retail funds, while leverage and margin trading together inflated the bubble. It was not a single IPO that caused the Great Depression, but the IPO frenzy was part of the runaway risk appetite at that time.

Crowd gathered on Wall Street after the stock market crash in 1929

The dot-com bubble of 1999-2000 was similar. A large number of internet companies with no profits, and even immature business models, went public, with IPOs skyrocketing on the first day being the norm. According to WilmerHale's IPO report, in 1999, the U.S. saw 537 IPOs raising about $95.3 billion; in the first quarter of 2000, internet-related companies accounted for 60% of the IPOs. Then came the Nasdaq crash, and the IPO window quickly closed.

2021 is a more recent example. Renaissance Capital data shows that in 2021, the U.S. had 397 IPOs raising a total of $142.4 billion, making it one of the largest fundraising years on record; if SPACs are included, the fervor is even more exaggerated. Companies like Rivian, Robinhood, Coinbase, along with many software and consumer internet companies, went public. However, by 2022, as interest rates rose, growth stocks were revalued downwards, and the SPAC craze faded, the new listings market quickly cooled off.

These histories illustrate that an IPO boom is like a thermometer.

When the market is willing to give higher and higher valuations to increasingly distant stories, and when primary market assets begin to flow intensively to the secondary market, it often indicates that liquidity has entered the most risk-taking stage. Subsequently, once interest rates, profit expectations, or risk appetite reverse, the IPO frenzy shifts from being a "cash cow" to a "top signal".

When the Bigger Table Opens

Over the past two years, the biggest change in the crypto space has been institutionalization.

The BTC ETF turned Bitcoin into an asset in a US stock account; Circle's IPO turned stablecoins into assets in the stock market; Coinbase, Robinhood, mining companies, and MicroStrategy packaged crypto beta as US stock beta. Now, SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are once again bringing the "future tech narrative" back to the US stock market.

This means that the crypto space is facing a different set of competitors.

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

In a high liquidity environment, this is not an issue. US stocks rise, BTC rises, and altcoins can also rise. But if liquidity tightens, funds will prioritize the assets that are the deepest, most compliant, and easiest to exit.

This is why this year's US stock IPO frenzy is crucial for the crypto space.

It won't simply create a "liquidity crisis," but it may further reshape the internal capital structure of the crypto space: BTC and ETH becoming more like macro assets, stablecoins more like cash management tools, exchange platforms and stablecoin companies becoming US stock assets, and long-tail altcoins increasingly relying on short-term sentiment and local narratives.

In the coming months, assessing the impact of this IPO wave on the crypto space should not just involve looking at whether the total market value of stablecoins has decreased, but should focus on several more sensitive indicators:

Whether spot trading volume can recover; if the proportion of derivatives trading will continue to remain high; if BTC dominance will keep suppressing altcoins; if the post-listing reception of new coins continues to weaken week by week; whether there is genuine buying interest in the market when high FDV projects unlock, and so on.

If these indicators continue to deteriorate, then the effect of the US stock mega IPOs on the crypto space will not be a one-time event, but will further shorten the market's duration of funds.

For the crypto space, the real issue is not "Will these IPOs drain all stablecoins," but rather: when US stocks offer a more mainstream high-volatility narrative, can the long-tail on-chain assets still retain the money willing to pay for the long-term story?

If the answer is no, then this year's IPO frenzy may not cause a liquidity crisis in the US stock market, but it could trigger a duration crisis in the altcoin market.

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