Four major crypto exchanges abruptly cancelled their tokenised SpaceX share offerings on 12 June, the same day SpaceX began trading on Nasdaq under ticker SPCX. Binance, Bybit, Bitget Wallet and MEXC all cited failure by their provider xStocks to deliver the underlying shares, forcing complete refunds to subscribers.
The collapse came despite massive retail demand. Binance alone had attracted over 557 million dollars in USDC from approximately 27,700 wallets before halting the campaign. MEXC saw its pre-IPO launchpad oversubscribed 15.5 times with more than 56 million USDT from over 38,000 participants. Industry reports suggest SpaceX triggered upwards of 100 billion dollars in total retail demand across platforms.
Trading continued elsewhere through alternative tokenised versions, with Backpack’s Solana-based SPCX token recording over 35 million dollars in volume within 24 hours. The incident exposes critical infrastructure weaknesses in the tokenised securities model, where token issuers remain entirely dependent on third-party providers to secure underlying assets.
FXnCO Insight
This failure demonstrates that tokenised securities carry significant counterparty risk through their reliance on intermediary platforms, making due diligence on the token provider as critical as the underlying asset itself.
Source: Finance Magnates