Facebook is expected to announce one of the most anticipated share offerings in history today.
Executives at the firm are locked in last minute discussions over the deal, which is expected to raise as much as $10billion.
The value of the firm, which Mark Zuckerberg, 27, famously began in his college dormitory, is set to rise from $75billion to $100billion.
Experts say the IPO could easily make 500 to 1,000 new millionaires, perhaps as much as one-third of the company, with many engineers who joined Facebook in its first few years in line to own $10 million or more in stock.
Zuckerberg, who is thought to own almost one-quarter of the company, could end up worth well over $20 billion.
However, in Silicon Valley, rumours were growing that the firm could take an unconventional approach to the offering - perhaps a provision for the 800 million users of Facebook, a company that promotes itself as all about personal connections, to get in on the action.
'Pandemonium is what I expect in terms of demand for this stock,' says Scott Sweet, senior managing partner at IPO Boutique, an advisory firm.
He added: 'I don't think Wall Street would want to anger Facebook users.'
The most successful young technology companies have a history of doing things differently.
Google's IPO prospectus contained a letter from its founders to investors that said the company believed in the motto 'Don't be evil.'
Facebook declined to comment, but Reena Aggarwal, a finance professor who has studied IPOs at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, believes the site's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg will emulate Google's philosophy.
Google founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, wanted an IPO accessible to all investors, and said so in their first regulatory filing.
Facebook may say something similar when it files to declare its intention to sell stock publicly. However, stock usually starts trading three to four months after the filing.
"There is a feeling that there will be something unique in store for Facebook users," Ms Aggarwal said.
