Binance has launched perpetual futures that allow users to trade the anticipated valuations of private companies before they go public. The first contract to be launched 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 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 quote, SPCXUSDT, will be margined and settled in the dollar-pegged stablecoin. 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 suite of derivative products 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 providing users with a more flexible way to participate early in early IPOs,” Shunyet Jan, head of Binance’s spot and derivatives business, said in the press release shared with CoinDesk.
“This launch reflects our vision of Binance as a financial super app, one that offers access to an ever-expanding range of financial opportunities that have traditionally been harder to reach,” Jan added.
These pre-IPO contracts are based on the same perpetual futures rails used for cryptocurrency trading. Prior to 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 stock’s 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 $4.69 billion in first-quarter revenue and a net loss of $4.28 billion and suggests a possible Nasdaq debut next month.
Operators at decentralized betting platform Polymarket are pricing in a more than 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 target 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.
The growing number of SpaceX pre-IPO markets may be diverting capital and, more importantly, attention from major cryptocurrencies.
It could be more than a coincidence that the bitcoin price rally lost steam around $80,000 a week ago and prices have since retreated to below $78,000.
Traditional market analysts are concerned that SpaceX’s upcoming IPO, which is expected to be the biggest stock market debut in history, could divert significant capital from other segments of the US market, including European IPOs.
Deepwater Asset Management’s Gene Munster captured the sentiment on Nvidia shares still ended the day unchanged at $220.60.
“Yes, NVDA crushed 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.
