As tech giants like SpaceX and OpenAI successively announce IPO plans, a power struggle over the pricing of listed companies is quietly unfolding in the crypto market.
In the past, Pre-IPO pricing power was firmly held by a select few—private equity funds, top investment banks, and institutional circles able to participate in secondary private share trading. Ordinary retail investors wanting in? Sorry, no chance. But now, the situation is changing, and changing faster than most people imagine.
Two Products, One Direction
Currently, Pre-IPO crypto products circulating in the market fall into two distinct categories.
The first type consists of spot tokens launched by centralized exchanges (such as Bybit, Gate, and 幣安). These products are essentially tokens issued by the exchanges, symbolically representing a claim on a company's shares; users trade the tokens themselves. There is no contract mechanism, no open interest, and no funding rate. The risks are quite apparent, as seen with the tokenized stock products for Anthropic or OpenAI. However, after the two companies issued legal warnings, the tokens plunged nearly 50% within a single week. The ambiguous legal status of spot tokens is the biggest fatal flaw of this product type.
The second type is Pre-IPO perpetual contracts (IPOP).
Built on the Hyperliquid chain, trade.xyz was the first to launch this product category in May this year. IPOP is a cash-settled perpetual derivative contract linked to a company's “expected post-IPO share price,” rather than representing any actual shares or subscription rights. Before listing, the platform sets an initial reference price based on the company's latest funding round valuation, S-1 filing documents, and other public information. Once the company officially lists, the contract automatically converts into a standard stock perpetual contract, allowing seamless position rollover without forced liquidation.
This is a true on-chain Pre-IPO pricing market—complete with OI, funding rates, and liquidation mechanisms, forming a fully structured framework.
Data Speaks: SpaceX Launch Day
On May 18, SpaceX's IPOP contract ($SPCX) officially launched on trade.xyz, serving as the most immediate case for observing this market mechanism.
The contract opened at a reference price of $150 per share, implying a valuation of approximately $1.78 trillion. Within hours of opening, the price surged above $203, translating to a valuation exceeding $2 trillion. First-day 24-hour trading volume reached $33 million, with open interest at $21.8 million. For a brand-new contract, these are impressive opening numbers.
What do these figures tell us? Market sentiment is extremely bullish, with longs clearly in control and early positions heavily concentrated. However, we must also recognize clearly that a significant gap may exist between this price and SpaceX's actual IPO pricing!
IPOP Trades Volatility, Not Valuation
Here lies a common misconception that many have not yet grasped.
Early positions in IPOP contracts naturally lean bullish—traders willing to use leverage to bet on a company before it lists are inherently a high-risk-tolerance group. Imbalanced long-short positioning combined with rapidly expanding OI and volume can easily generate sharp volatility. Yet this volatility reflects market sentiment and volatility expectations, not a precise forecast of actual IPO pricing.
trade.xyz's own documentation plainly states: IPOP prices may differ materially from any announced IPO pricing range, final IPO price, or post-listing market price.
In other words, when you see $SPCX implying a valuation above $2 trillion, it does not mean the market believes SpaceX is truly worth that much. It tells you that bullish sentiment is extremely heated and leverage is heavily piled up; any negative news could trigger a cascade of liquidations at any moment. This market is more about trading expected volatility itself than serving as a traditional value-discovery mechanism.
Fragmentation and Regulation: The Ceiling of Influence
Even so, the extent of real influence the IPOP market can exert on traditional IPO pricing remains constrained by two structural obstacles.
The first is liquidity fragmentation. Pre-IPO-related products are scattered across spot tokens, IPOP contracts, OTC private share trading, and other venues, each with different pricing logics and clearing mechanisms, making it difficult to consolidate into a consensus signal that investment banks can directly reference.
The second is regulatory uncertainty. The legal classification of IPOP remains unclear, and the regulatory boundaries between the SEC and CFTC have yet to be established. Named companies (such as Anthropic and OpenAI) may also proactively issue warnings demanding that exchanges delist related products, further compressing the market's room for development.
What This Means for Investors?
For ordinary investors, IPOP represents an unprecedented opportunity to participate—you don't need to be an investment bank client or an LP; as long as you have a crypto account, you can bet on-chain on a company's valuation trajectory before it lists. However, high leverage, uneven liquidity, and potential price gaps during contract conversion also make this market full of pitfalls.
The most important mindset is to treat IPOP-implied valuations as market sentiment indicators rather than substitutes for fundamental pricing. It tells you how many people are betting, in which direction, and how crowded the leverage is—not how much the company is truly worth.
The game between traditional IPO pricing mechanisms and on-chain derivatives markets has only just begun. SpaceX $SPCX's launch today marks the latest node in this competition. Whether the center of gravity for pricing power will truly shift depends on the speed at which regulatory frameworks mature and whether traditional institutions are willing to formally acknowledge the reference value of on-chain price signals.
Until that day arrives, this market's best use remains as a mirror for observing market sentiment, not a reason to go all-in.