Binance launches SpaceX pre-IPO perps amid $2 trillion valuation bets

Binance has launched perpetual futures that allow users to trade the anticipated valuations of private companies before they go public. The first contract to go live is tied to SpaceX, a company expected to debut at a valuation of $2 trillion or more.

The "Pre-IPO Perpetual Contracts" are designed to provide retail traders 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 margined and settled in the dollar-pegged stablecoin tether USDT$0.9992 and is based on the expected market valuation of Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX).

The move marks the expansion of Binance's derivatives product suite into traditional finance territory.

"Pre-IPO perpetual futures is 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're giving users a more flexible way to engage with anticipated IPOs earlier," Shunyet Jan, head of spot and derivatives business at Binance, said in the press release shared with CoinDesk.

"This launch reflects our vision for Binance as a financial super app — one that offers access to an expanding range of financial opportunities that have traditionally been more difficult to reach," Jan added.

These pre-IPO contracts are built on the same perpetual futures rails used for crypto trading. Before a company's public debut, 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 transition to reflect the shares' live 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 basis of roughly $35,000 per bitcoin. The filing also revealed $4.69 billion in first-quarter revenue and a $4.28 billion net loss and suggests at a possible Nasdaq debut next month.

Traders on the decentralized betting platform Polymarket are pricing in more than a 70% chance that the IPO will ultimately close above $2 trillion. Reuters reported that SpaceX is targeting a valuation of around $1.75 trillion for its planned listing.

Binance’s recent listing of SpaceX 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 $1.78 trillion valuation, and generated an impressive $33 million in trading volume on the first day alone.

The growing number of SpaceX pre-IPO markets may be taking capital and, more importantly, attention away from major cryptocurrencies.

It could be more than a coincidence that bitcoin's price rally ran out of steam at around $80,000 a week ago and prices have since pulled back to under $78,000.

Traditional market analysts are concerned that SpaceX’s upcoming IPO, expected to be the largest stock debut in history, could divert significant capital away from other segments of the U.S. market, including European IPOs.

Deepwater Asset Management’s Gene Munster captured the sentiment on X, noting that SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO filing on Wednesday “sucked the air out of the NVDA quarter,” even as the AI chipmaker delivered blowout quarterly earnings. Nvidia shares still ended the day flat at $220.60.

“Yes, NVDA crushed earnings,” 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.