Key Takeaways

• SpaceX has submitted confidential IPO paperwork targeting a $1.75 trillion market cap with plans to raise $75 billion
• AI giants OpenAI and Anthropic may also debut publicly in 2026, with combined valuations potentially exceeding $3 trillion
• While IPO volume has dropped 41.5% in 2026, capital raised has surged 35% as larger companies dominate
• Historical data reveals mega-IPOs typically decline in their first half-year: major debuts since 1999 averaged 10% losses
• The aerospace company generated approximately $16 billion in revenue and $8 billion in profits during 2025

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has submitted confidential documentation for a public stock offering that could shatter all previous IPO records. The aerospace manufacturer is pursuing a staggering $1.75 trillion market capitalization while seeking to secure $75 billion through the public markets.

Should this valuation materialize, SpaceX would climb ahead of Tesla to become America’s eighth-most-valuable publicly traded corporation.

Musk, who simultaneously leads Tesla, has already demonstrated his ability to generate exceptional returns — Tesla shareholders have enjoyed roughly 23,000% gains since the electric vehicle maker’s 2010 market debut. Many are wondering if SpaceX can replicate that extraordinary performance.

SpaceX generated approximately $16 billion in annual revenue throughout 2025, alongside $8 billion in net profits. These figures place the company on remarkably solid financial ground compared to typical IPO candidates.

The aerospace giant operates Starlink, its satellite-based internet service, and recently completed a merger with Musk’s xAI venture, which encompasses both the Grok artificial intelligence system and the X social platform.

SpaceX isn’t the only tech titan preparing for a public market entrance. Artificial intelligence powerhouses OpenAI and Anthropic are both anticipated to submit IPO filings before 2026 concludes. The trio’s combined market value could surpass $3 trillion.

David Solomon, Goldman Sachs’ chief executive, recently noted during an earnings discussion that equity markets have demonstrated “exceptional strength” and suggested IPO momentum may intensify. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley’s CEO Ted Pick observed that investor standards for new public offerings remain “exceptionally elevated” under current market conditions.

The Evolving IPO Environment

The 2026 IPO landscape reflects a clear trend toward quality over quantity. By mid-April, just 38 companies valued above $50 million had completed public debuts — representing a 41.5% year-over-year decline. Despite fewer listings, total capital raised has climbed 35% to reach $13.3 billion, per Renaissance Capital’s tracking.

This week witnessed Madison Air, a filtration systems manufacturer, complete 2026’s largest IPO to date, securing $2.2 billion at a $13.3 billion valuation. Shares jumped nearly 20% during opening trading. Defense technology company Arxis pulled in $1.1 billion and saw its stock surge 38% on day one.

However, not every 2026 IPO has celebrated success. Cryptocurrency platform BitGo, oncology-focused biotech Eikon Therapeutics, and diabetes technology developer MiniMed are all currently trading substantially beneath their initial offering prices.

Historical Patterns Suggest Caution

While enthusiasm surrounding SpaceX runs high, historical performance data suggests investors should temper expectations for the immediate post-IPO period.

Since 1999, the largest market debuts have consistently struggled during their first six months as public companies. Facebook plummeted 38% within half a year of trading. Alibaba declined 9%, General Motors slipped 8%, and Saudi Aramco shed 15%. Only Visa bucked the trend, climbing 23%. Collectively, these mega-IPOs averaged approximately 10% losses during their first six months.

If SpaceX follows this historical pattern with a 10% drop, investors would witness roughly $175 billion in market capitalization evaporate.

Retail investors must also consider whether the most significant appreciation has already occurred during private funding stages. While pre-IPO investment vehicles from ARK Invest, Robinhood, and Baron Capital provide some access, these funds have experienced considerable volatility throughout the past year.

SpaceX has yet to disclose when it will publicly file its registration statement or establish a definitive timeline for beginning public trading.

Tempo unveiled a new “Zones” feature Thursday aimed at giving enterprises bank-style privacy on public stablecoin rails, but not everyone in crypto is convinced the trade-offs are worth it.

The payments-focused layer-1, co-developed with backing from Stripe and Paradigm, said Zones will let companies run transactions in permissioned environments while still tapping public blockchain liquidity. The pitch targets a long-standing issue for institutions: sensitive data like payroll, merchant volumes or treasury activity being exposed on public ledgers.

Some privacy-focused developers argue that the design sacrifices too much. Because each Zone is controlled by an operator that can see full transaction data and suspend a user’s ability to transfer or withdraw funds based on its own compliance rules, critics say it introduces centralized trust assumptions closer to an exchange than a trust-minimized blockchain.

The debate reflects a broader divide in crypto infrastructure as projects compete for institutional adoption. While Tempo is betting on simplicity and interoperability, rivals are leaning into advanced cryptography to keep transaction data confidential end-to-end.

Tempo’s Zones aim to hide enterprise flows

Tempo says that Zones are structured as parallel, permissioned chains attached to Tempo’s main network, designed for use cases such as payroll, fund management and B2B settlements. Companies can transact inside these environments while assets remain interoperable with the public chain, other Zones and shared liquidity pools.

Each Zone is run by an operator that controls access and has visibility into transactions, while the public network verifies batched state updates and proofs. Tempo says this approach preserves the benefits of a public blockchain while offering the compliance and auditability enterprises expect from traditional financial systems.

Related: XRP Ledger taps Boundless for bank-grade privacy on public blockchains

While some projects rely on advanced cryptography to hide transaction data and provide user anonymity, Tempo argues that these approaches “introduce unnecessary operational complexity and usability tradeoffs.”

Some rivals prefer cryptographic privacy

Tempo’s operator-centric model has drawn criticism from some builders, who argue it weakens both privacy and self-custody. If a single party can access transaction data and control availability, they say, users are effectively trusting an intermediary rather than relying on cryptographic guarantees.

Projects like ZKSync, for example, rely on private chains anchored to public networks using zero-knowledge proofs. Arcium is exploring distributed models where data remains encrypted across nodes and only verified outputs are revealed, and Zama uses fully homomorphic encryption to enable computation on encrypted data.

Ghazi Ben Amor, senior vice president, business development at Zama, told Cointelegraph that, while the underlying cryptographic algorithms are “indeed extremely complex,” Zama abstracts that complexity and allows developers to code the smart contracts using Solidity and without any prior knowledge of cryptography.

He said that enterprises using Zama Protocol “don’t even notice any cryptography is operating behind the scene,” and argued that Tempo’s Zones are essentially private blockchains, no different from existing centralized payment systems, which have proven their limitations in terms of scalability.

Tempo did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for additional comment.

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