The Truth About SpaceX Tokenized Stocks: What You Buy Is Not Equity, Just Economic Exposure?

Economic exposure is there, but shareholder rights are absent.

Written by: Boaz Sobrado

Compiled by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

"These 'OpenAI tokens' are not OpenAI equity." On July 1, 2025, the OpenAI newsroom account publicly posted to clarify, "We have not partnered with Robinhood, are not involved in this matter, and do not endorse it."

This warning was not unexpected. The day before, Robinhood officially launched over 200 tokenized U.S. stocks for European users on the stage in Cannes, also distributing free "stock tokens" linked to two of the most sought-after private companies—SpaceX and OpenAI. The problem is, neither company had signed off on this. Within 48 hours, OpenAI warned fans to "be cautious." A week later, Lithuania's central bank, the main regulator in Europe, also stated that it was awaiting clarification on how these tokens were structured.

The real issue lies in the structure. Holding Robinhood's SpaceX token does not equate to holding SpaceX stock. What you actually own is a debt claim on a special purpose vehicle (SPV) fund, which holds preferred shares of SpaceX. The OpenAI token is even more absurd; it traces back to convertible notes, which are not stocks at all. In either case, what buyers ultimately receive is merely a number that fluctuates with the company's valuation, and almost nothing else—no voting rights, no name on the shareholder register, and no real ownership.

Those creating these products are quite candid about it.

"Your name will not appear on the shareholder register"

Chan Ahn is someone who specializes in these types of tokens. He is the founder and CEO of Tessera. On the On The Margin podcast, he openly stated, "The private market is where the real wealth effect exists. But it has always been open only to the top 0.1% through cumbersome paperwork, high minimum investment thresholds, and geographical restrictions." His company sells tokens for private companies like SpaceX and prediction market Kalshi. Buying one, he said, "There is no KYC process; this is intentional, not an oversight."

But he also straightforwardly admits what the tokens are not: "You are not a true private stockholder, so you have no voting rights. Your name will not appear on the shareholder register, and so on. But you do gain economic exposure to the underlying company, and that is what matters."

In other words, what you buy is price exposure, not ownership.

Contractual debt, not ownership

Chris Turner, co-founder of Kula, articulated this distinction more clearly: "What it really does is reference that asset or give you a contractual exposure to the economic upside of that specific asset. But you do not own the asset. The asset owner owns the asset."

He further distinguished between two models. One is the currently common "contractual debt" model; the other is true "ownership tokenization"—"You own the token, and the token itself is the asset, so you own the asset. That is different." Turner acknowledged that true ownership tokenization "has actually begun to happen," but what most ordinary investors are still encountering is the former—a contractual right that follows the price.

Regulators' attitudes are almost entirely consistent. Natasha Cazenave, Executive Director of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), warned in September 2025 that tokenized instruments "generally do not grant shareholder rights," thus "creating specific risks of investor misunderstanding." Hester Peirce, a commissioner leading the SEC's crypto working group in the U.S., stated more directly in a July 2025 statement: "Tokenized securities are still securities." She added that blockchain "does not have the magical ability to change the nature of the underlying asset."

In short: going on-chain does not turn debt into equity.

Issuer-led bets

Some believe that the real solution is to have different people handle this matter.

Edwin Mata is the CEO and co-founder of Brickken. This Barcelona-based company was founded by him in 2020, prior to which he was a mergers and acquisitions lawyer. He advocates: instead of having brokers or third parties package others' shares into offshore vehicles, companies should issue their own tools on-chain, within their own jurisdiction, as regulated securities.

Mata likens Brickken to Shopify in the financial sector: "We are a tokenization-as-a-service company that allows any business to instantly digitize financial instruments without code and without dealing with any technical details." Companies can use it to tokenize equity, debt, bonds, commodities, gold, real estate, and all within their own jurisdiction.

The company claims to have tokenized over $660 million in assets across 40 countries (this is self-reported and unaudited). Mata emphasizes that tokenization is not a new invention but an upgrade of securitization. "Tokenization comes from securitization; it is essentially an upgrade of the original."

The scenarios he is most optimistic about are actually quite down-to-earth—short-term receivables, invoices, and factoring-type debt instruments. "Because they are highly liquid and of substantial volume." This is far from the spectacle of free distribution of SpaceX tokens, yet closer to the "infrastructure-level" applications that regulators hope to see.

"Embedding the entire economy"

Whether Brickken can become a winner, the entire market is moving in this direction.

BlackRock's tokenized money market fund BUIDL launched in March 2024, marking the first time large institutions took this matter seriously. Robinhood's own blockchain, built on Arbitrum technology, is also set to officially launch its mainnet on July 1, 2026. According to data from RWA.xyz, excluding stablecoins, the transferable value of on-chain real-world assets has grown from about $8 billion in 2024 to now between $26 billion and $32 billion.

Bruno Caratori, co-founder and COO of crypto index management company Hashdex, pointed out that the real barrier is often not technology but understanding: "People find it hard to invest in things they do not understand. They need to be able to explain to themselves why this specific asset or asset class will appreciate over time."

Mata looks even further ahead. He envisions "proxy capital markets"—AI could automatically help issuers create tokenized products based on market value and demand. He said, "It will no longer just be a niche area of blockchain but will embed itself into the entire economy."

But all these discussions revolve around one core question: does tokenized equity bring ownership, or is it merely price?

On this point, builders and regulators have remarkably reached a consensus. As Chris Turner said, once the token itself is the asset, not a debt claim on the asset, "you own the asset. That is different."

Currently, the vast majority of so-called "tokenized stocks" in the market still belong to the latter category.

Buyers need to think clearly: what exactly are they buying?