SpaceX has not yet gone public, but the crypto market has already begun a "rehearsal": pre-IPO contracts are trading at an average daily volume of $18 million.

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The cryptocurrency market is pricing SpaceX's listing performance months in advance through pre-IPO perpetual futures contracts.

Synthetic asset contracts tracking SpaceX launched this month, with average daily trading volume reaching nearly $18 million in the past two weeks. On the Trade.xyz platform, the contract has recently traded around $200, and the total open contracts denominated in USDC stablecoin have exceeded $50 million.

Investors cite the listing case of Cerebras Systems to endorse the signal value of this market. According to a Castle Labs report, Trade.xyz launched the Cerebras contract at $175 when its pricing range was established, while the AI chip company eventually set its issue price at $185; an hour before Nasdaq opening, the contract was quoted at $340, and Cerebras opened at $350. However, it is difficult to build a complete credit record based solely on a single data point.

However, the risks are just as clear. On May 28, the Ventuals platform triggered forced liquidations for some SpaceX contract users due to an oracle data input error. Perpetual contracts do not grant holders any legal rights to the underlying company and carry inherent risks such as holding costs and funding rate distortions.

Crypto Infrastructure Opens Pre-IPO Access Channels

Applying perpetual futures to pre-IPO stocks was initially just a workaround for retail investors to participate in popular AI startups indirectly. But as the valuations of AI unicorns like Anthropic and OpenAI continue to soar, these products have moved from the margins to mainstream—with Binance, Bitget, and OKX all launching similar products this year.

Lloyd Lee, CEO of crypto hedge fund Hyperithm, said, "The pre-IPO market has always been exclusive to qualified investors and private funds, but crypto infrastructure is opening this door to anyone with a wallet." He further pointed out that less than 10% of the global population can participate directly in US stock investments, and pre-IPO access is even scarcer; for traders in regions with weak financial infrastructure, obtaining exposure via perpetual futures is particularly significant.

Demand for tokenized pre-IPO products had already heated up due to soaring AI unicorn valuations, and the accurate “prediction” of Cerebras’s listing further strengthened market interest in SpaceX contracts, prompting previously cautious traders to take the price discovery function of this market seriously.

Cerebras as Reference: How Valuable Are the Signals?

Supporters believe the Cerebras case shows that pre-IPO perpetual contracts can effectively aggregate real demand signals before an IPO opens to the public, rather than simply creating speculative noise.

Data shows Trade.xyz launched the Cerebras contract at $175 while its pricing range was set between $115 and $125, and the final issue price landed at $185; an hour before Nasdaq opening, the contract was quoted at $340, and Cerebras opened at $350—both sets of data within single-digit percentage error.

D2 Finance portfolio manager Luca Parlamento defines these trades as “basis trades”, betting on how the price difference shaped by pre-IPO demand, scarcity, and liquidity evolves. “Pre-IPO perpetual contracts fold this window of time into a public order book before the opening bell rings,” he says, “They’re not a substitute for the traditional qualified investor secondary market, but a place for retail investors to trade the IPO opening basis in real time.”

He also admits the mechanism’s limitations: before listing, the lack of actual stocks available for arbitrage, funding rates possibly distorting returns, and drastic price swings often reflecting imbalances in retail flows rather than the company’s fundamental value.

Risks Remain: Oracle Failures and Structural Limitations

Structural risks of perpetual contracts have already manifested this month. On May 28, Ventuals platform confirmed to users that the off-chain data provider tracking SpaceX’s pricing entered erroneous data, causing a sharp deviation between oracle price and mark price and resulting in forced liquidation for some users.

This incident revealed the unique fragility of pre-IPO contracts: while the underlying company has not yet listed and lacks a continuous public price reference, settlement prices rely entirely on the oracle mechanism. If data sources deviate, users with open positions bear the direct consequences.

In terms of scale, the market remains quite limited. SpaceX contracts have daily volumes in the millions, while SpaceX’s expected IPO fundraising is up to $75 billion. The huge gap means the crypto market’s price signals can hardly fully capture institutional-level real demand, nor withstand the shocks from large-scale capital flows.

Signals for Long-Term Positioning Emerge

Despite diverse risks, some participants are showing signs of long-term strategies. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said there are indeed some users trading SpaceX contracts who chose to hold exposure rather than immediately take profits.

Trade.xyz’s SpaceX perpetual contract currently has open interest exceeding $50 million. Although this number is far from SpaceX's expected IPO scale, for a market that has only been online for two weeks, it already demonstrates considerable participation depth.

For retail investors, these products may not make them true early shareholders of SpaceX—but they have gained something they never had before: a real-time tradable price benchmark before the company is publicly listed.

Risk Disclosure and DisclaimerMarkets carry risk, investment requires caution. This article does not constitute personal investment advice and does not consider the unique investment goals, financial situations, or needs of individual users. Users should consider whether any opinions or conclusions in this article fit their specific circumstances. Investing on this basis is at your own risk. ```