Internet Capital Markets

Many thanks to 0xIchigo and Akshay for reviewing earlier versions of this work.

Introduction

Internet Capital Markets (ICMs) stands alongside slogans like “Increase Bandwidth, Reduce Latency” (IBRL) and “Only Possible on Solana” (OPOS) as a core expression of Solana’s identity and ambitions. First coined by Solana Foundation CMO Akshay in a 2025 marketing memo, the term has since rapidly gained traction and become a rallying cry for Solana’s long-term vision.

As the moniker gained popularity, it was adopted by the memecoin community, where ICMs came to describe a new class of speculative tokens. While this helped raise awareness, it also blurred the original meaning of ICMs and introduced confusion about what the term stands for.

Internet Capital Markets represent a bold reimagining of global finance. A future where:

• All forms of value can be represented, owned, traded, and collateralized on a single, internet-native ledger.
• Capital formation becomes frictionless, enabling companies to raise funds from a global pool of investors with efficient on-chain mechanisms for price discovery, governance, and reward distribution.
• Investment opportunities become democratized through fractional ownership, liquidity for previously inaccessible assets, and open access to high-growth markets, fueling a more inclusive ownership economy.

Two core forces drive this movement:

• Lowering barriers to asset issuance by enabling anything of value to be tokenized through supportive products and regulatory frameworks.
• Lowering barriers to asset ownership by allowing anyone with a mobile phone to invest and participate freely in markets.

ICMs outline a vision for the next generation of capital markets rebuilt from the ground up, optimized for transparency, efficiency, inclusivity, and shared global liquidity. Just as the internet democratized access to information, blockchains democratize access to capital. In this paradigm, economic participation is no longer gated by geography, wealth, or outdated regulation. Anyone with an internet connection and a wallet can become an investor, a stakeholder, or an owner on equal terms.

This future unlocks investment opportunities across the full spectrum of financial capital. From equities and real estate to commodities and even cultural artifacts, anything of value can be tokenized and made investable. In doing so, ICMs lay the foundation for universal basic ownership: a world where everyone has a fair opportunity to build wealth and participate in economic growth.

Critics may argue that this vision is overly idealistic. In practice, integrating with traditional financial systems means inheriting their fragmented regulations, jurisdictional barriers, and entrenched power structures. The influence of legacy financial institutions, regulatory bodies, and national interests could significantly limit the scope of what’s practically possible, if not block meaningful progress altogether.

Proponents counter that ambitious goals are essential. If blockchain technology merely provides a digital replacement for gold, fiat-backed stablecoins, and speculative trading, then its impact will be severely limited. The real opportunity lies in building something fundamentally better: a more open, accessible, and inclusive financial system. Without such aspirations, the question becomes, what are we building for?

Furthermore, a shift in the U.S. political landscape has opened the door to greater regulatory clarity for digital assets. Under the new administration, the SEC has changed its approach from regulation by enforcement to developing a clear, rules-based framework. The coming years will be critical in shaping the foundational policies that govern the industry. Now is the time for the blockchain community to articulate a clear vision for how this technology can help build a more open and equitable financial system. That vision is “Internet Capital Markets”.

Equities: The Cornerstone of Internet Capital Markets

Equities are central to realizing the vision of ICMs. Representing ownership in a company, shareholders are entitled to a portion of the profits and assets, making them one of the most important and accessible forms of financial participation.

As of early 2025, the global equity market spanned nearly 48,000 publicly listed companies with a combined market capitalization of approximately $124 trillion. This reflects a 13% year-over-year increase and a long-term annualized growth rate of about 6%. The United States continues to lead, accounting for over $63 trillion, more than half of the global total.

Equities are not only among the largest and most liquid asset classes, but also among the most financially rewarding. According to the Federal Reserve, 58% of U.S. households (roughly 76 million) own stocks. The median value of those holdings is $52,000, comprising more than half of the average household’s financial assets.

Bringing equities onto open, tokenized ledgers can not only dramatically expand access to one of the most potent vehicles for long-term wealth creation but also help solve some of the systemic issues that have become increasingly apparent within the asset class.

The Shrinking Public Market

Most companies in the U.S., the EU, and the UK remain privately owned. Only a small fraction is publicly traded, and that fraction is shrinking. In the U.S., 81% of companies with over $100 million in revenue are privately held, making them inaccessible to retail investors. The proportion is even higher in Europe and the U.K.

Meanwhile, fewer companies are choosing to go public. According to London Stock Exchange data, as of June 17, 2025, global IPO volume has fallen 9.3% year-over-year to $44.3 billion, the lowest level in nine years. IPO activity in the U.S. declined by 12% to $12.3 billion, while in Europe, it dropped by 64% to just $5.8 billion.

This trend concentrates investor demand into a smaller pool of public assets. With supply constrained, capital tends to flow into passive index funds and a select group of high-growth mega-cap stocks. The so-called “Magnificent 7” Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Tesla now account for approximately 33% of the S&P 500’s total market capitalization. This trend reflects not only the surge in investor interest for companies poised to benefit from the AI software boom but also highlights a deeper structural issue: the growing reluctance of companies to enter public markets.

Staying Private, Longer

Companies are increasingly staying private well into their growth phase. Many of the world’s most valuable tech firms, such as Stripe, SpaceX, OpenAI, and ByteDance (the parent company of TikTok), remain privately held. Some, like Stripe, have even suggested they may never go public.

Historically, public investors had access to the upside of companies much earlier in their growth trajectory. Amazon, for example, went public in 1997 at a valuation of $440 million. As of June 2025, it's worth around $1.9 trillion, a 4,300× return largely captured in public markets by public shareholders.

*Employee tenders offer some insider liquidity, but retail investors remain excluded.

Had Amazon stayed private until reaching a $90 billion valuation, more than 98% of its lifetime gains would have gone to insiders and accredited investors. Yet, this is the pattern many late-stage unicorns now follow.

A new category of massive “quasi-public” companies has emerged, which, a decade ago, would have all been publicly listed by now. Unlike in the past, when private capital was too limited to support these giants, today’s deep-pocketed private equity firms can provide the necessary funding. Companies can now cycle between private equity owners, often utilizing continuation funds to facilitate secondary transactions, thereby significantly prolonging their private status.

Compounding this effect is the high cost of going public. Over the past decade, the IPO process has grown more expensive and complex. According to PwC estimates, software companies with annual revenues and deal sizes between $100 million and $250 million typically face IPO costs ranging from $7.6 million to $29.5 million. The bulk of these expenses comes from underwriting, legal, and accounting fees.

Barriers to Investment Access

Access to private markets remains restricted. In the U.S., only accredited investors can legally participate in private equity, venture capital, and other unregistered securities. To qualify as an accredited investor, an individual must meet at least one of the following SEC criteria:

• Earned $200,000+ annually (or $300,000 with a spouse) in the last two years
• Have a net worth of over $1 million, excluding their primary residence
• Hold specific financial credentials (e.g., Series 7, 65, or 82 licenses)

Restrictions in the EU and the U.K. are similar. Because they are presumed to understand and accept higher risks, accredited investors have access to investment opportunities that are not available to unaccredited retail investors. For most people, this means that investment opportunities are limited to publicly listed securities, mutual funds, real estate, ETFs, and crypto. The accreditation system, originally designed to protect investors, means retail investors are locked out of nearly all the highest-growth companies and immense value creation happening in private markets.

Outside North America and Western Europe, the access gap is even more stark. Retail investors in many countries have limited access to many of the financial asset classes Western consumer markets take for granted. Roughly three-quarters of the world’s eight billion people lack a brokerage account that can access U.S. exchanges. For example, India, with a population of approximately 1.4 billion, has just 192 million demat accounts, or about 14% participation. Furthermore, some 1.4 billion adults worldwide remain entirely unbanked. Retail savers in emerging economies often default to hard assets, such as property and gold, to protect their purchasing power. 

Seen through this lens, the proliferation of speculative “get-rich-quick” schemes and outright scams in crypto markets is less a quirk of retail exuberance than a predictable by-product of structural exclusion. When the real growth opportunities are gated behind accreditation rules and cross-border barriers, investors flock to whatever doors remain open.

Capital Outruns Labor

The diminished returns to labor exacerbate this effect. Over the last half-century, the engine of U.S. wealth creation has shifted decisively toward capital. Equity markets compound at double-digit rates, wages struggle to keep pace with inflation, labor’s GDP share erodes, and wealth accrues to the already-wealthy.

In January 1971, a single S&P 500 share traded at roughly $95, while the average production worker earned $3.55 an hour, so about 27 hours of labor bought one share. By December 2024, the index averaged $6,011, while the same worker earned $30.67 an hour, requiring 196 hours (nearly five 40-hour workweeks) to buy that share. Put differently, the S&P 500 price has risen ~63 times since 1971, while hourly wages have risen only ~9 times, with capital compounding about seven times faster than wages.

Perceptions are catching up with the statistics, and, unsurprisingly, public confidence in the American Dream has sagged. Only 27% of adults still believe that hard work alone leads to success, down from 50% in 2010. Over one-third of Americans would struggle to pay an unexpected $400 bill. 33% of Americans have no retirement savings. 

In the same way capital has outrun wages, the federal balance sheet is sprinting ahead of tax revenue. U.S. Federal debt has surpassed $36 trillion, equivalent to approximately 120% of GDP, with interest payments exceeding $1.1 trillion in 2024, surpassing defense spending for the first time. The Congressional Budget Office now projects that net interest will exceed all discretionary defense outlays every year from 2025 onward.

History suggests politicians will again lean on inflation rather than default or austerity to erode this mountain of debt, keeping asset prices buoyant and the wage-capital gap yawning wider each cycle. If this trajectory continues unchecked, it may even lead to civil unrest and aggressive redistribution of resources. Growing public resentment could spark demands for punitive tax hikes, capital restrictions, and a weakening of legal protections for investors.

As wealth inequality deepens, contrasting visions have emerged to address the growing divide between those who hold capital and those who do not. Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a redistributive approach that proposes direct cash transfers to individuals to ensure a minimum standard of living. It is rooted in the idea that in a world of automation and abundance, income should be decoupled from labor.

Universal Basic Ownership (UBO) is a proactive vision focused not on redistribution but on expanding access to the sources of wealth generation themselves. Instead of just taxing and transferring income, UBO focuses on giving more people a direct stake in the systems and assets that generate long-term prosperity. Emerging examples of this approach include:

• Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend: Each year, Alaskans receive a share of the state’s oil revenues and investment returns ($1,700 in 2024) through the Alaska Permanent Fund. It’s a model for how the profits of shared resources can be returned to the public, aligning citizen incentives with economic growth.
  
• Equity for Labor: Companies like Uber and Airbnb have explored ways to give equity to drivers and hosts, but regulatory barriers, notably SEC Rule 701, which excludes most independent contractors, have blocked those efforts. The early Uber drivers helped create massive value but walked away with only wages, not ownership.
  
• Baby Bonds: Proposed U.S. legislation would create $1,000 tax-deferred investment accounts for every newborn between 2025 and 2028, with families able to contribute up to $5,000 annually. With steady contributions and compounding, these accounts could grow to over $574,000 by age 60, giving individuals a real stake in long-term capital growth.

Rather than receiving passive income from the state, individuals in a UBO model gain broader access to capital markets, investment opportunities, and high-growth assets that were previously reserved for institutions and those with capital.

Internet Capital Markets embrace this vision of Universal Basic Ownership. They represent a future where anyone with an internet connection can participate in early-stage investments, tokenized equities, and on-chain economic systems. By drastically reducing barriers to entry and minimizing intermediaries, ICMs aim to democratize financial opportunity by enabling fair participation in wealth creation at the source.

In this future, companies will go public directly on the internet, accessing a global pool of over a billion investors with private keys. This shift is already underway, with early initiatives laying the groundwork for fully internet-native capital formation.

Bringing ICMs to Life

In the following section, we’ll explore practical examples of Solana projects that are actively advancing the ICM’s vision of efficient capital formation and expanding fair global access to business ownership.

• Project Open, by the Solana Policy Institute
• Opening Bell, by Superstate
• Astana International Exchange (AIX) Dual Listings
• xStocks, by Backed
• Mirror Tokens, by Republic
• Gavel, by Ellipsis Labs

Project Open, by the Solana Policy Institute

Launched in March 2025, the Solana Policy Institute (SPI) is a non-partisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to educating policymakers about the future of the digital economy, with a particular emphasis on decentralized networks such as Solana. Led by CEO Miller Whitehouse-Levine and President Kristin Smith, the SPI represents a strategic push toward policy engagement, regulatory clarity, and long-term institutional adoption, key pillars for realizing the vision of ICMs.

In May, the SPI submitted Project Open to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in collaboration with Superstate, Orca, and the law firm Lowenstein Sandler LLP. This proposal outlines a comprehensive regulatory framework for the compliant issuance and trading of tokenized securities on public blockchains. Project Open calls for an 18-month SEC-sanctioned pilot program, allowing registered issuers to trade equity securities as digital tokens while fully adhering to existing investor protection rules and maintaining SEC registration standards.

Clear regulatory frameworks are essential for the ICM's vision to take hold. Without a compliant path for issuing and trading tokenized securities, broader institutional participation will remain out of reach. Project Open addresses this gap head-on, laying the legal and structural foundation needed to bring ICMs into reality. It represents a crucial step toward legitimizing tokenized equities issued on public blockchains and enabling their integration into the regulated financial system.

Opening Bell, by Superstate

Opening Bell is a platform developed by Superstate that enables companies to issue SEC-registered equity directly onto blockchains, starting with Solana. Shares are recorded and tokenized by Superstate’s SEC-registered, blockchain-enabled transfer agent (Superstate Services LLC), which handles ownership tracking, share issuance and redemption, and dividend distribution. Importantly, Opening Bell tokens represent actual shares, fully compliant and issued on-chain, without relying on synthetic exposure, wrapped assets, or offshore workarounds.

By integrating allowlists and permissioned controls, Opening Bell ensures that only eligible, KYC-verified investors — both accredited and unaccredited — can participate. Investors can buy and sell shares like standard tokens, with 24/7 DeFi trading, instant settlement, and transparent price discovery. There are no investment minimums for unaccredited investors, though the platform’s fee structure has not yet been disclosed.

Opening Bell is open to both existing public companies and late-stage private firms. Public companies gain access to new liquidity and a crypto-native investor base. At the same time, private firms can list shares earlier than traditional markets would allow, with a pathway to a full up-listing on the Nasdaq or the NYSE.

SOL Strategies ($HODL), a publicly traded Canadian firm focused on Solana infrastructure, is one of the first to announce plans to list its common shares on Solana via Superstate. The company also intends to list on Nasdaq, creating a dual-market presence that bridges public markets and the digital asset ecosystem.

Astana International Exchange (AIX) Dual Listings

In May, the Solana Foundation and decentralized exchange Jupiter signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Astana International Exchange (AIX) and Kazakhstan-based crypto exchange Intebix. The agreement sets the stage for a potential dual listing framework, allowing companies to conduct traditional IPOs on AIX while simultaneously issuing tokenized shares on Solana. AIX, which runs on Nasdaq’s trading technology, currently lists over 138 securities, including Kazatomprom, the world’s largest uranium producer.

While still in the exploratory phase, this partnership signals Solana’s broader ambition to position itself as a global platform for internet-native capital formation. Similar initiatives are quietly gaining traction worldwide, as governments, exchanges, and financial institutions begin laying the groundwork for tokenized financial infrastructure that could redefine how capital markets operate. For companies listed on AIX, such a collaboration presents the opportunity to tap into a global, blockchain-native investor base, potentially making capital raising faster, more accessible, and more efficient.

xStocks, by Backed

xStocks bring real-world U.S. equities and ETFs onto Solana in the form of tokenized tracker certificates. Developed by Backed Assets (JE), a Swiss startup focused on compliant tokenization infrastructure, xStocks offers permissionless, self-custodied access to some of the world’s most sought-after securities, without the need for traditional brokerages or custodians.

Currently, xStocks provides exposure to 61 U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs, including household names like Amazon, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, McDonald’s, Visa, Walmart, and the S&P 500 ETF. Each xStock is issued as an SPL token on Solana, utilizing the Token2022 standard and backed 1:1 by the underlying asset. Issuance is conducted under an EU-approved prospectus, ensuring a high standard of legal compliance. The project recently went live on Solana in partnership with the centralized exchange Kraken.

xStocks tokens are freely transferable and can be held in any Solana-compatible self-custody wallet. This opens up a range of use cases in DeFi, including using xStocks as collateral in lending protocols, trading them on decentralized exchanges, or integrating them into automated yield strategies. The issuance and redemption of the tokens are restricted to KYC-qualified purchasers, with a fee of up to 0.50% applicable when entering and exiting the investment.

While xStocks tokens unlock powerful new DeFi use cases, they do not represent new equity issuance or capital raised on-chain. Much like fiat-backed stablecoins, each token is fully backed off-chain by the underlying asset, with the actual shares held in custody. The token serves as a transferable, self-custodied proxy for real-world equities, offering a highly accessible on-chain entry point to traditional markets, without altering how those companies raise capital.

Mirror Tokens, by Republic

Republic, a New York-based investment platform, has introduced a novel way for retail investors to gain exposure to high-profile private companies by offering tokenized debt instruments on Solana. Its first product, rSpaceX, provides investors with synthetic exposure to SpaceX, the world’s most valuable private company, with an estimated valuation of $350 billion as of December 2024.

The rSpaceX token is issued under Regulation Crowdfunding, a provision of the 2012 JOBS Act that allows small securities offerings to be sold to retail investors. Tokens are priced at $1.00 each, with a minimum investment of $50 and a maximum of $5,000 per investor. These tokens are not equity shares in SpaceX, but rather promissory notes issued by RepublicX LLC, a subsidiary of Republic.

Each token entitles the holder to a potential payout based on the value of SpaceX shares at the time of a liquidity event, such as an IPO or acquisition, but carries no direct ownership, voting rights, or legal claim to SpaceX itself. Instead, the token uses SpaceX's share price as a reference benchmark for determining returns. Republic explicitly discloses that investors' sole counterparty is RepublicX LLC, which assumes full responsibility for payment and reporting obligations under the notes.

Republic has signaled plans to expand this offering to include similar tokens referencing other major private companies, such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe, Ramp, Epic Games, Cursor, xAI, Telegram, and Waymo. Tokens will be minted using a Republic-developed security token standard deployed on Solana. 

While this structure falls short of offering actual equity exposure, it represents a significant step toward broadening retail access to private markets. Republic’s tokenized model may prove to be a bridge between the opaque world of private equity and the liquidity and transparency of public markets, albeit with key limitations.

Gavel, by Ellipsis Labs

Gavel is a full-service platform by Ellipsis Labs that enables fair, efficient, and fully on-chain token distribution and capital formation. It allows teams to raise funds, distribute tokens, and bootstrap liquidity without relying on centralized exchanges, avoiding high listing fees, minimizing exposure to toxic MEV, and ensuring greater transparency throughout the process.

At its core, Gavel addresses three critical needs for those launching a token:

• Capital formation
• Token distribution
• Price discovery and initial liquidity

The platform's architecture prioritizes resistance to sniping and sandwich attacks, both of which undermine the integrity of on-chain launches today.

Gavel's capital formation process begins with a public token sale. Projects can choose from several mechanisms, including Dutch auctions, fixed-price first-come-first-served (FCFS), or permissioned sales, depending on their goals. Projects also decide what portion of the total token supply to allocate to the sale. Crucially, the final sale price establishes the opening price for secondary market trading.

Following the sale, a portion of the collected capital (typically in SOL) is paired with the remaining token inventory to seed an AMM pool. Gavel ensures that the clearing price of the public sale matches the initial trading price on the AMM, preventing price dislocations and protecting early participants from immediate dilution or price manipulation.

Gavel’s sandwich-resistant AMM is designed to provide transient liquidity, serving as a bootstrapping mechanism rather than a long-term liquidity sink. Unlike traditional locked liquidity approaches that often trap capital and create irretrievable losses, Gavel implements a managed LP withdrawal schedule. Over time, it programmatically removes liquidity, converts it to the paired coin (e.g., SOL), and burns it, gradually winding down the AMM position as the token achieves sustainable market trading.

Gavel plays a foundational role in realizing the ICM vision by offering a fully on-chain alternative to IPOs, venture rounds, or token launches that rely on bonding curves. Its sniper- and sandwich-resistant architecture ensures that new token launches are both capital-efficient for issuers and trustworthy for investors.

Conclusion

The vision of ICMs is bold: a globally accessible, permissionless financial system where anyone with an internet connection can be an investor, and where capital formation is as seamless as spinning up a smart contract. In this future world, capital markets are not confined to Wall Street and Nasdaq; they’re a feature of the internet itself. Every app can be a financial app. Every user can be a trader. Every asset can be owned, traded, and collateralized on-chain.

Realizing this future requires practical infrastructure, regulatory clarity, and real user adoption, all of which are beginning to take shape today. Today, tokenized equities serve as proxies, not capital raises, and issuers must contend with outdated legal and regulatory frameworks. But the groundwork is being laid for a future where a company can raise capital directly from a global user base, where investors trade around the clock with near-zero fees, and where on-chain composability enables a new era of capital efficiency.

Further Resources

• Internet Capital Markets Accelerate Presentation - Akshay BD, CMO Solana Foundation
• The Solana Thesis: Internet Capital Markets - Kyle Samani, Multicoin Capital