Crypto traders are pointing to a strong opening for SpaceX’s long-awaited IPO, but the signal is less euphoric than it looks. Perpetual futures tied to the company are pricing in a first-day pop, not a runaway rally.
The SpaceX pre-IPO perpetual contract is trading around $162 on Hyperliquid, about 20% above the fixed IPO price of $135 per share. That is well below the peak above $220 seen shortly after the contract launched in May.
What the market is signaling
Musk’s rocket company is reportedly four times oversubscribed, suggesting demand is running far ahead of the shares available in the offering. SpaceX is set to begin trading Friday on Nasdaq at a valuation of $1.77 trillion.
If that valuation holds, the company would become the seventh-largest public company in the United States and would move ahead of Tesla, which has a market capitalization of roughly $1.6 trillion.
Eric Chen, co-founder and CEO of Injective Labs, told www.cnbc.com that the perpetuals on Hyperliquid point to real interest, but not extreme optimism. “Perpetuals on Hyperliquid suggest there’s interest in the SpaceX IPO, but it’s far from euphoric,” Chen said.
Why the signal matters, and why it can mislead
Perpetual futures, or “perps,” let traders speculate on an asset’s price without expiration and with leverage, without ever owning the underlying asset. They are especially popular in crypto trading and account for more than 70% of all volume on centralized global crypto exchanges, according to CoinGecko.
Chen said these markets are mostly driven by very active, risk-tolerant traders, so they can offer a useful clue without predicting the broader market response. He added that the risk is the most optimistic participants still are not pricing in a massive premium, which raises questions about how durable demand will be once real liquidity and price discovery begin.
The slide in the SpaceX perp has also come as crypto prices have weakened more broadly. Bitcoin and ether are down 20% and 23%, respectively, from when the contract launched on May 18.
That leaves SpaceX heading into its market debut with strong attention, clear demand, and a derivatives market that still looks measured rather than wildly bullish.