AI vs Cryptocurrency: Which track will offer more Pre-IPO investment opportunities by 2026?

2026 is becoming the most intense IPO year in U.S. stock market history. From SpaceX and OpenAI to Anthropic, a batch of super unicorns are submitting listings plans one after another, with the combined valuation of the top ten private companies worldwide swelling to over $4.5 trillion. Meanwhile, the IPO window in the crypto sector is also opening, with multiple native crypto companies such as Kraken, Consensys, Ledger, CertiK, and tZero announcing plans to go public, and JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs fully involved in crypto IPO underwriting. AI and crypto—these two hottest tracks in the current capital markets—who deserves more attention in the game of Pre-IPO investment opportunities?

AI Track: A Trillion-Dollar Valuation Super Feast

In April 2026, OpenAI’s implied pre-IPO valuation has already reached $1 trillion, a 163% increase from October 2025. The company may officially IPO in the fourth quarter of this year. But OpenAI’s “rivals” are even more aggressive—Anthropic’s valuation in the primary and secondary markets has surpassed $1 trillion, more than doubling within the year. On the leading private trading platform Forge Global, some shareholders even offered a sale at a valuation of $1.15 trillion.

From a broader perspective, SpaceX, valued at over $1.7 trillion, and ByteDance, valued at over $400 billion, are also lining up for listing. According to the Financial Times’ estimates, the combined valuation of SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic alone could surpass $2.5 trillion.

Funding is equally hot. Since the start of 2026, domestic embodied intelligence companies have disclosed over 30 funding rounds totaling about 20 billion yuan, with 13 companies valued at over 10 billion yuan. GPU inference companies like “Xiwang” have raised over 1 billion yuan in a single round, becoming unicorns with valuations exceeding 45k yuan in their niche. Meanwhile, leading autonomous driving companies like Momenta and DeepWay have also completed several hundred million dollars in Pre-IPO funding. However, behind this investment frenzy, bubble risks are hidden: capital input in the embodied intelligence industry has already created a several-fold gap with actual revenue, with the total annual revenue of all first-tier companies less than 10k yuan.

Crypto Track: The “Invisible IPO Wave” Covered by AI

While market attention is drawn to trillion-dollar AI giants, the “infrastructure layer” of the crypto sector is quietly heading toward the public markets. Circle has completed an IPO on the NYSE, raising $1.1 billion at $31 per share. BitGo went public on the NYSE in January 2026, with a first-day surge of over 20%, and a market cap of $2.6 billion. As of April 24, the total crypto market cap is $2.6 trillion, with Bitcoin at $78,170 and Ethereum at $2,321.

The IPO pipeline in 2026 is even richer. Kraken, valued at $20 billion, generated $1.5 billion in revenue in 2024 and has received investments from top market makers like Citadel Securities. Consensys, the parent company of MetaMask, valued at $7 billion, is working with JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs to prepare for an IPO. Ledger plans to list on the NYSE at a valuation of over $4 billion; CertiK, valued at $2 billion, plans to IPO by late 2026 or early 2027. Additionally, tokenization platform tZero also announced plans to go public in 2026. However, recent updates show Kraken paused its IPO plans in March due to market downturns, and CertiK, which handles security audits, announced IPO goals at Davos. Meanwhile, the current crypto regulatory environment is becoming clearer: the GENIUS Act has established the first federal framework for stablecoins, and the CLARITY Act clarifies asset classifications. The U.S. SEC has also clarified how tokenized securities operate within the legal framework.

Gate Pre-IPs: An Entry Ticket for Dimensionality Reduction Participation

Traditional Pre-IPO investments have long been monopolized by top venture capital firms, hedge funds, and ultra-high-net-worth individuals, with ordinary investors often only able to chase in at high prices after companies go public. In April 2026, Gate officially launched a digital Pre-IPO platform, opening this originally institutional-only investment channel to over 52 million users worldwide.

The core mechanism is to tokenize and encapsulate traditional Pre-IPO equity using blockchain technology. Users stake USDT to mint PreTokens representing future equity rights, which can be freely traded 24/7 on the order book market. After asset distribution, pre-market trading can begin. The first project on Gate Pre-IPs, SpaceX (SPCX), had its subscription open for only 24 hours, with total subscriptions exceeding $353 million, and a minimum threshold of just 100 USDT. Whether it’s AI track giants like OpenAI and Anthropic or crypto track leaders like Consensys and Ledger, users can comprehensively position themselves in top private companies across both sectors.

Summary

The Pre-IPO investment market in 2026 is undergoing unprecedented structural transformation. The AI track, with its super-high valuation of trillions of dollars, leads market imagination, with capital enthusiasm at an all-time high, but risks of valuation bubbles and disconnection from commercialization are also worth vigilance. The crypto sector’s valuations are relatively “grounded,” and as regulatory frameworks become clearer and infrastructure matures, “seller-of-water” crypto companies are迎来 a golden window for compliant listings. The two tracks are not mutually exclusive—through Gate’s Pre-IPO platform, investors can simultaneously position in both, using lower capital thresholds to participate in early-stage opportunities that were once only accessible to top institutions.