MEXC recorded more than 7.1 billion USDT in perpetual futures trading tied to SpaceX shares in the weeks following the rocket company's public listing on June 12. The figure comes from the exchange's own Q2 report and has not been independently audited.

What made the number unusual was how it was built. Users could subscribe to SpaceX before it went public, trade futures on it afterward, hold a tokenized version, and then buy the actual share, all without leaving the platform. MEXC ran two SPACEX(PRE) pre-listing subscription rounds while the company was still private, pulling in over 173 million USDT from more than 74,000 entries. One company went from private to publicly traded inside a single quarter, and MEXC had a product waiting at each step.

RealStocks filled the last gap

The final piece landed June 1, when MEXC launched RealStocks, a service that routes orders for actual US stocks and ETFs through a licensed broker partner. Unlike tokenized exposure, buyers receive dividends rather than just price movement. The exchange has not named the broker, disclosed custody arrangements, or explained how the USDT-to-dollar conversion is priced. Over 120,000 users signed up in the first month and 52% funded an account. By June 18, dividends had been settled on 34 stocks and ETFs.

Stock futures carried a lot of the equity flow. When Micron reported June earnings, MU futures volume on the platform jumped roughly 142% in a single day, with activity spilling into SanDisk, SK Hynix and a DRAM ETF. "Q2 put real numbers behind the word gateway," said Vugar Usi, who became chief executive during the quarter.

MEXC is not alone in the race. Binance opened access to roughly 7,000 US stocks on June 1, the same day RealStocks launched, routing orders through broker-dealer Nest Trading with Alpaca handling custody and corporate actions. Fractional purchases start at $5, funded in USDC, USDT or BNB. Kraken took a different path: its xStocks tokenized equity brand crossed $25 billion in cumulative volume in under eight months and now accounts for eight of the eleven largest tokenized equities, with listings on Deutsche Börse's 360X venue. Coinbase has described its own roadmap as building an "Everything Exchange."

The pre-IPO subscription round alone, 173 million USDT from 74,000 people chasing a single private company, gives a sense of how far crypto platforms have moved from simply trading Bitcoin.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice or an investment recommendation.