Republic, a New York-based investment startup, is providing users with exposure to SpaceX by issuing a "tokenized" version of its shares. The company plans to begin selling these digital tokens this week and aims to expand the offering to other private firms such as AI leaders OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as Stripe, X, Waymo, Epic Games, and more. The Wall Street Journal first broke the story on Wednesday. "We're focused on delivering products to retail investors that they’ve previously been excluded from, " Republic co-CEO Andrew Durgee told CNBC. "It’s always seemed crazy to us that retail investors couldn’t own pre-IPO SpaceX shares. Now, that exposure will be tied to the upside of these pre-IPO companies. From the outset, we want to target businesses with a strong retail focus or significant retail following. " In the crypto space, tokenization refers to issuing digital representations on a blockchain network of publicly traded securities, real-world assets, or other value forms. Holders of tokenized assets do not gain direct ownership of the underlying assets. This initiative arrives amid the U. S. crypto industry exploring new regulatory frontiers under President Donald Trump’s pro-crypto administration. Since taking office, the Securities and Exchange Commission has worked to ease restrictions imposed by the prior administration, including ending an enforcement case against Coinbase; closing investigations into Robinhood Crypto, Uniswap, Gemini, and Consensys without enforcement actions; downsizing its crypto enforcement unit; declaring meme coins not to be securities; and launching a Crypto Task Force that has been organizing roundtables on crypto asset regulation. "If you look back over the last four to eight years, innovation in the space was very constrained, " Durgee stated.

"The reality is, the space was just hard for most people to understand and engage with. But now, it has become much more mainstream. " "We've transitioned from facing almost nothing but headwinds, " he added, "to an industrywide environment where we have tailwinds and substantial room to innovate. " Republic will permit investors to invest between $50 and $5, 000 in these tokens. Conventionally, investing in private companies requires minimums closer to $10, 000 along with specific income or net worth qualifications. While accredited investors can trade private company shares on secondary markets, Republic will initially price SpaceX tokens according to the company’s share performance in those markets. Tokenized private equity represents uncharted territory for regulators and the companies digitally represented. Key questions remain about the legality of tokens, how Republic will fulfill financial disclosure obligations to investors, and how offering private investments to retail investors might impact financial market stability. "We do not need a company’s approval to conduct these offerings, though some companies may want greater control over such initiatives, " Durgee explained. "The structure we utilize, grounded in securities law from the 1930s, often provides enough flexibility to support these offerings. Moving forward, people will need to carefully consider how they approach innovations like this and how far they are willing to push the associated risks. "