In the context of a tightening financing environment and an extended token issuance cycle, trading activities before TGE are evolving from sporadic attempts into a "1.5 level market" that connects the primary and secondary markets, gradually becoming an independent market layer in the crypto industry that cannot be ignored.
Recently, HTX Research, the exclusive research department under Huobi HTX, released a new report titled “Pre-Market Asset Trading Ecosystem: Mechanism Evolution, Market Structure, and Future Trends Behind Its Multi-Billion Scale”, which systematically studies the formation background, asset structure, typical patterns, and profound impacts of the pre-market trading ecosystem in the crypto market on project issuance and exchange systems.
The report focuses on an accelerating trend: in the context of a tightening financing environment and an extended token issuance cycle, trading activities before TGE are evolving from sporadic attempts into a "1.5 level market" that connects the primary and secondary markets, gradually becoming an independent market layer in the crypto industry that cannot be ignored.
From "Pre-Token Issuance Vacuum Period" to Pre-Market: A New Structure Between Primary and Secondary
HTX Research points out that the rise of the pre-market trading ecosystem is not accidental. As primary financing contracts and project issuance cycles are passively extended, project parties begin to maintain community activity through methods such as points, airdrop expectations, and testing qualifications, while users continue to invest time and funds before TGE. In this process, the originally non-tradable "early contributions" and "future expectations" gradually acquire conditions for assetization.
At the same time, the threshold for token issuance has decreased, and the number of projects has surged, making attention a scarce resource. The pre-market trading mechanism, centered around attention, expectations, and future rights, begins to grow naturally, forming an intermediate market that originally existed only within VC and exchanges. This is an emerging 1.5 level market (Pre-Market), whose role is no longer just a speculative tool but a key structure reshaping project initiation methods and early liquidity.
Three Asset Structures Comprising the Pre-Market Trading Ecosystem
Starting from the "anchoring methods of future value," HTX Research categorizes pre-market assets into three structural types:
The first type revolves around the future value of tokens, with trading models mainly including pre-market OTC, pre-market spot, and pre-market perpetual contracts. These assets are most directly connected to future spot prices and bear the concentrated price discovery function during the pre-market phase.
The second type revolves around the points system, namely user behavior points and their financial derivatives, which have gradually formed a standardized points OTC market. Points carry user contributions and incentive expectations in airdrop economics, and through trading and revenue splitting mechanisms, they are incorporated into market pricing in advance.
The third type revolves around future redeemable rights, appearing in forms such as NFTs, qualification certificates, or BuildKey, converting non-standard rights like whitelists, Early Access, and token quotas into tradable assets.
These three structures collectively cover the complete link from "user contribution—market expectation—rights confirmation—final settlement," making the pre-market no longer a single-point tool but a multi-layered pre-trading system.
Huobi HTX's Practical Exploration of Pre-Market Perpetual Contracts
As market demand expands and the ecosystem matures, pre-market trading is extending from OTC and spot forms to derivative structures. Pre-market perpetual contracts, as an innovative derivative design, allow users to engage in leveraged speculation around future spot prices before the token is officially launched, providing possibilities for further price discovery. Currently, pre-market perpetual contracts have become one of the largest trading models in terms of volume.
In this direction, Huobi HTX was the first to launch WLFI (World Liberty Financial) pre-market perpetual contract trading before the highly anticipated project went live this year, providing users with tools for early participation in price speculation and risk management before TGE. This practice also reflects the trend pointed out in the report: the role of exchanges is extending from "listing nodes" to "pre-issuance stages," and pre-market trading is becoming an important component of the exchange product system.
The Scale Potential and Structural Challenges of the Pre-Market
Pre-market trading has a clear scale foundation, with leading projects often generating trading demands in the hundreds of millions during the pre-market phase. Cumulative pre-market trading volumes for projects like WLFI and Monad can even exceed one billion dollars, making pre-market trading a multi-billion market with further expansion potential.
However, at the same time, the pre-market also exposes clear structural risks: liquidity is naturally thin, and prices can be easily influenced by large funds; settlement heavily relies on project parties, and information asymmetry persists; different asset forms lack unified standards in rules, performance, and risk allocation. These issues determine that the further expansion of the pre-market depends on whether it can transition from an "opportunistic market" to a more institutionalized and collaboratively governed structure.
Conclusion
HTX Research believes that pre-market trading is not a short-term gimmick but a structural trend driven by changes in the financing environment, the evolution of user participation methods, and the extension of trading platform products. It is reshaping project issuance paths, exchange listing logic, and the ways users participate in early markets.
In this process, pre-market trading is gradually evolving from the "gray area before issuance" into a key foundational layer connecting the primary and secondary markets. Its final form may become a core market structure that exists long-term in the crypto market and is continuously institutionalized.
About HTX Research
HTX Research is the exclusive research department under Huobi HTX, responsible for in-depth analysis across a wide range of fields including cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology, and emerging market trends, writing comprehensive reports, and providing professional assessments. HTX Research is committed to providing data-driven insights and strategic foresight, playing a key role in shaping industry perspectives and supporting informed decision-making in the digital asset space. With rigorous research methods and cutting-edge data analysis, HTX Research consistently stands at the forefront of innovation, leading industry thought development and promoting a deeper understanding of the ever-changing market dynamics. Visit us.
If you wish to communicate, please contact research@htx-inc.com.
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