Injective debuts pre-IPO derivatives, distancing from Robinhood private equity tokens

Injective Protocol, a layer-1 blockchain focused on decentralized finance, is launching onchain pre-IPO perpetual markets, giving global investors access to trade synthetic versions of major private companies such as OpenAI.

The new offering allows users to take up to five times leveraged positions on private company valuations directly through Injective, a move the protocol says distinguishes it from centralized pre-IPO products offered by platforms like Robinhood.

According to Injective’s announcement on Wednesday, the Pre-IPO perpetuals are powered by onchain data sourced from Seda Protocol, which provides decentralized oracle infrastructure to bring price data onto blockchains, and Caplight, which aggregates private market pricing data for venture-backed companies.

“Unlike other pre-IPO solutions from Robinhood and others, Injective’s Pre-IPO perps are built different,” the protocol said, highlighting features such as full onchain execution, programmability, composability and capital efficiency.

The first pre-IPO perpetual market will list ChatGPT developer OpenAI, with trading available on Helix, a decentralized exchange built on Injective. The protocol said additional private companies will be added in October.

Injective positioned the launch as part of its broader mission to “bring every financial market onchain,” referencing its focus on real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and the expansion of DeFi into traditional markets.

The RWA market has grown rapidly this year, with the total value of onchain financial assets reaching almost $32 billion, according to industry data.

Related: Deutsche Telekom subsidiary becomes a validator for Injective blockchain

A distinction from Robinhood’s private equity tokens

Historically, pre-IPO market access has been restricted to institutional or accredited investors, creating barriers for retail participants. Injective’s model uses onchain perpetual derivatives tied to reference prices of private companies, offering a decentralized and permissionless way to gain exposure, though not equivalent to holding equity.

The distinction is notable given Robinhood’s regulatory scrutiny earlier this year over its “private equity tokens,” with companies like OpenAI publicly clarifying that those products did not represent ownership stakes. However, as Galaxy Digital noted, Robinhood’s fine print clarifies that the equity tokens are “derivatives that provide indirect exposure to the underlying asset.”

Nevertheless, in July, the Bank of Lithuania, Robinhood’s main regulator in the European Union, said it was seeking “clarifications” on the firm’s stock token offerings.

An Injective spokesperson further clarified the difference between the offerings in a statement to Cointelegraph: “This is much more uniquely positioned because it’s a perpetual derivative based on a reference price of the Pre-IPO company,” they said, noting that the product is not available to users in the United States, United Kingdom or Canada due to regulatory restrictions.

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