Binance launched perpetual futures contracts that allow users to trade the anticipated valuations of private companies ahead of their IPO. The first contract to go live is tied to SpaceX, a company expected to debut with a valuation of $2 trillion or more.
“Pre-IPO Perpetual Contracts” are designed to provide retail investors with early exposure to high-profile initial public offerings (IPOs), a market segment historically reserved for institutional investors and venture capital firms. The first listing, SPCXUSDT, will be marginalized and settled as part of the dollar-pegged stablecoin. and is based on the expected market valuation of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) by Elon Musk.
The move marks the expansion of Binance’s derivatives portfolio into traditional financial territory.
“Pre-IPO perpetual futures are another example of how Binance is democratizing access to market opportunities by combining crypto-native infrastructure with major financial events. As interest in public listings continues to grow, we are offering users a more flexible way to engage in early IPOs earlier,” said Shunyet Jan, head of spot and derivatives business at Binance, in the press release shared with CoinDesk.
“This launch reflects our vision for Binance as a financial super app, which provides access to a growing range of financial opportunities that are traditionally harder to reach,” added Jan.
These pre-IPO contracts are built on the same perpetual futures rails used for cryptocurrency trading. Before a company goes public, the contract price will reflect publicly available signals, such as private funding rounds and announced IPO price ranges. Once the stock begins trading on a secondary exchange, the contract will evolve to reflect actual market performance.
SpaceX filed its S-1 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday, disclosing holdings of 18,712 BTC at a cost of approximately $35,000 per bitcoin. The filing also revealed first-quarter revenue of $4.69 billion and a net loss of $4.28 billion and suggests a possible Nasdaq debut next month.
Traders at decentralized betting platform Polymarket put the chance at more than 70% that the IPO will ultimately close above $2 trillion. Reuters reported that SpaceX was targeting a valuation of around $1.75 trillion for its planned listing.
Binance’s recent listing of SpaceX’s pre-IPO futures follows comparable offerings from OKX, Crypto.com and Hyperliquid’s Trade.xyz. Trade.xyz’s SpaceX perpetual futures launched on May 18 with a reference price of $150 per share, implying a valuation of $1.78 trillion, and generated an impressive $33 million in trading volume on the first day alone.
SpaceX’s growing number of pre-IPO markets could divert capital and, more importantly, attention away from major cryptocurrencies.
It could be more than a coincidence that Bitcoin’s price rally petered out at around $80,000 a week ago and prices have since fallen back below $78,000.
Mainstream market analysts are concerned that SpaceX’s upcoming IPO, expected to be the largest IPO in history, could draw significant capital away from other segments of the U.S. market, including European IPOs.
Deepwater Asset Management’s Gene Munster captured the sentiment on Nvidia shares still ended the day at $220.60.
“Yes, NVDA crushed its profits,” Munster said. “But SpaceX’s positioning as a sovereign AI company offers a more compelling long-term (10-year) growth story.” He added that Nvidia and SpaceX together could reach a combined market capitalization of $7 trillion.
