This isn’t the first time that an impending IPO has found a market on crypto platforms. Perpetual contracts on SpaceX SPCX and Cerebras (CBRS), for example, traded on TradeXYZ, a platform on the Hyperliquid network, ahead of their stock market debuts.
The contracts show how price discovery for big IPOs is starting to take place on crypto platforms, even before the first share trades. They’re not always accurate, though. For SpaceX, synthetic perpetual futures on Hyperliquid and Binance traded around $162-$165, implying a valuation of $2.2 trillion. The company’s official IPO valuation was almost 20% lower at $1.8 trillion.
It’s worth remembering that a pre-IPO contract is a perpetual future, a bet on price with no expiry date, tied to a company that is not yet on the stock market. Holders do not get shares, votes or dividends, only exposure to the price.
Traders post USDT, a dollar-linked stablecoin, as collateral to take a leveraged bet in the pre-IPO contract. Bitget says the contract is “based on publicly available information, such as announced IPO pricing ranges or the final offering price.”
Bitget says it will convert the contract into a standard perpetual once the shares list. If the IPO is delayed, repriced or canceled, the contract can move sharply.
