Private Sale Tokenization: A New Attempt by Blockchain to Reshape the Primary Market

In the current financial sector's hot topics, equity tokenization is gradually becoming the focus of market attention. Recently, a Web3 startup completed a $5 million Pre-seed financing, triggering widespread discussion in the industry about the concept of private equity tokenization. The company proposed a rather innovative idea: using Blockchain technology to convert the private equity of unlisted companies into asset-backed Tokens, allowing ordinary investors to participate in investments in star companies such as SpaceX and Stripe with a lower threshold.

This initiative has attracted significant interest from the market as it attempts to break the long-standing early investment dividends that have only been available to institutional investors and ultra-high-net-worth individuals. By "minting" private equity as blockchain assets, this previously closed investment sector is opening up to a broader group of investors.

Private Sale Tokenization: A New Direction for Asset On-Chain

The private sale market has long been a relatively closed domain in the financial world. A certain company has established an index system covering 30 top private companies to measure the overall performance of these Pre-IPO enterprises. Data shows that the return rates of these companies are quite impressive.

From the beginning of 2021 to the first quarter of 2025, the index has risen by 81% cumulatively, far exceeding the 51% increase of the Nasdaq 100 index during the same period. Even against the backdrop of an overall market decline in the first quarter of 2025, these leading unlisted companies still rose by 13% against the trend. This strong performance not only reflects the fundamental advantages of these companies but also indicates their enormous growth potential before the IPO.

However, these high-growth opportunities have long been limited to a small number of elite investors. Traditional private equity investments usually require large amounts of capital, have complex transaction structures, and lack public liquidity, which excludes ordinary investors. In addition, the exit methods for these companies are not limited to IPOs, as mergers and acquisitions are becoming an increasingly common choice, further raising the participation threshold for ordinary investors.

Private equity tokenization aims to break this structural inequality. It transforms the originally high-threshold, low-liquidity, and complex structure of private equity into on-chain native assets, significantly lowering the entry barrier, increasing liquidity, and simplifying the transaction process through smart contracts. This innovation is expected to allow more ordinary investors to share in the growth dividends of high-quality unlisted companies.

Innovative Attempts of the Three Major Platforms

Platform A

As a blockchain-based asset tokenization platform, it aims to break down the barriers of the traditional financial world, allowing Pre-IPO assets, which were previously accessible only to high-net-worth individuals, to become investment products that global users can participate in. Its operating mechanism is relatively straightforward: the platform first completes the actual equity acquisition of the target company, and then tokenizes this portion of equity on-chain in a 1:1 manner.

The advantage of this platform lies in its complete transparency and traceability, with all Token issuance totals, circulation paths, and holding information publicly recorded on the blockchain, allowing any user to verify in real time. At the same time, the platform has simplified the investment process, allowing users to participate in investments starting from just $10, without the need to worry about complex due diligence, legal, and other backend work.

In this model, the token price is highly correlated with the company's valuation, and the returns for investors come directly from the actual growth of the enterprise, rather than the platform's marketing narrative. This mechanism not only enhances the authenticity of the investment but also opens the door to the Primary Market for ordinary investors.

Platform B

Recently, a well-known investment platform launched a new product line, with the inaugural product targeting a famous aerospace company, attempting to "mirror" this unicorn enterprise valued at $350 billion as a publicly available on-chain asset. Investors can purchase tokens starting from $50, supporting multiple payment methods.

This token does not grant holders voting rights, but has designed a unique "tracker" mechanism: when the target company undergoes an IPO, acquisition, or other significant events, the platform will return corresponding benefits to investors based on their token holding ratio. This innovative structure minimizes legal barriers while retaining the core right to profit distribution.

It is worth noting that these Tokens will have a 12-month lock-up period after issuance. In terms of regulation, the product adheres to relevant crowdfunding rules in the United States, and global investors can participate, but specific qualifications will be screened based on local laws.

Platform C

This is a RWA asset tokenization solution provider located in Europe that has recently ventured into the private sale market securitization field. The platform collaborates with a local digital securities platform, aiming to leverage Blockchain technology to reshape the way European professional investors participate in the private sale market.

The core advantage of the platform lies in the standardization of product structure, with compliance logic embedded in the issuance process, allowing for rapid replication and expansion across different jurisdictions. The special Token standard used enables the entire process from token generation to transfer to embed control logic such as KYC and transfer restrictions, ensuring that the product is legal and transparent, and investors can independently verify its safety on the blockchain.

In the increasingly stringent financial regulatory environment in Europe, the market demand for such "compliant on-chain assets" is growing rapidly. The platform is filling the trust gap between institutional investors and on-chain assets in a highly technical manner.

Conclusion

The rise of private equity tokenization signifies that the primary market is entering a new stage of structural transformation driven by blockchain technology. However, this path still faces numerous real-world challenges. Although it redefines market access rules, it will still take time to completely break down the deep structural barriers between retail and institutional investors. This innovation is not a simple application of technology, but a long-term game about trust, transparency, and institutional reconstruction, and its real test has just begun.