Hyperliquid: Pre-IPO Price Discovery on Crypto Rails

Coin Metrics State of the Network is an unbiased, weekly view of the crypto market informed by our own network (on-chain) and market data.

Key Takeaways

• Pre-IPO perpetual futures create synthetic, 24/7 derivative markets for private companies like SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic, providing exposure to their expected valuations before they go public.
• Cerebras’ (CBRS) Nasdaq debut showed Hyperliquid’s pre-IPO perp had already priced it within 1.3% of the $350 opening price, showing that these markets can provide a credible signal for IPO pricing.
• Ahead of SpaceX’s June 12th IPO, SPCX perps are trading at an aggregated VWAP of $155 across venues against a $135 IPO price, with over $215M in open interest and $2.2B in cumulative volume across Hyperliquid, Binance and other venues.

Introduction

With digital asset markets facing another drawdown, Bitcoin (BTC) has slipped ~50% from its all time high in October 2025. At the same time, the largest IPO pipeline in history is about to open. SpaceX is set to make its Nasdaq debut on June 12th in what would be the largest public offering in history, with Anthropic and OpenAI slated to follow. For ordinary investors, access to these companies before they list has been limited. Private market exposure has historically been gated to accredited investors and private fund allocations, while valuations are opaque, pricing is infrequent, and liquidity is shallow.

However, perpetual futures contracts on crypto rails are helping close this gap. Hyperliquid has already demonstrated real demand for 24/7 price discovery across macro assets while traditional markets are closed, with Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 builder deployed perpetuals accumulating ~$290B in cumulative trading volume and $3B in total open interest across equities, indices and commodities. This is now extending to pre-IPO markets at a time when demand for continuous pricing and access to private markets is higher than ever.

In this issue of State of the Network, we examine how pre-IPO perpetual futures work, trace Cerebras Systems (CBRS) through its IPO as a case study in on-chain price discovery, and gauge what SpaceX is pricing across venues ahead of June 12th. Alongside this issue, we have built a dashboard tracking these markets in real time.

Access the Dashboard

What are Pre-IPO Perpetuals?

Pre-IPO perpetual futures are synthetic derivative contracts designed to create a continuous market for the implied valuation or share price of a private company. They allow participants to express directional views on where a company’s equity might trade, hedge portfolio exposure, or monitor how the market is pricing a name into its public listing.

These contracts do not represent real shares or IPO allocations and carry no ownership or voting rights. Positions are maintained through funding rates exchanged between longs and shorts based on whether the contract trades above or below its mark price.

Contracts on companies like SpaceX now trade on Hyperliquid as well as centralized exchanges (CEXs) including Binance, Coinbase International, Gate.io and OKX. On Hyperliquid, they are deployed under the HIP-3 permissionless framework on TradeXYZ and Ventuals, two builders that follow different conventions and pricing mechanisms for pre-IPO perps.

Trade.xyz (CBRS, SPCX):

• Contracts are priced in expected share price
• The mark price is derived entirely from Trade.xyz’s own internal orderbook, with no external data feed. The market itself functions as the oracle until IPO.
• Post-IPO, the contract automatically converts to a standard externally-priced equity perpetual.

Ventuals (SPACEX, OPENAI, ANTHROPIC):

• Contracts are priced in implied company valuation denominated in billions of dollars. A price of $1300 means the market implies a $1.3T valuation.
• Pricing uses a hybrid oracle, combining off‑chain private‑market data (funding rounds, secondaries, etc.) with onchain trading activity.

Source: Talos Pre-IPO Perps Market Data Dashboard

Across the above Hyperliquid pre-IPO markets, total open interest currently stands at approximately $106M with $1.46B in cumulative volume since launch. Trade.xyz accounts for 95% of this volume.

Cerebras Systems (CBRS) into Nasdaq IPO

Cerebras Systems Inc. (CBRS), an artificial intelligence chip manufacturing company listed on Nasdaq on May 14, 2026. The IPO came 13 days after Trade.xyz launched its pre-IPO perpetual on Hyperliquid. This window offers a clear validation of onchain price discovery for private companies.

From launch, CBRS was priced well above the $175 reference level, trading in the $280–320 range in the days leading into the IPO. Underwriters ultimately priced the IPO at $185, while CBRS opened on Nasdaq at $350. Over the final hour before the Nasdaq opening print, Hyperliquid’s CBRS perp traded at a VWAP of roughly $354.54, just 1.3% above the eventual cash open and about 89% above the IPO price.

Source: CM Market Data Feed & Yahoo Finance

The liquidity picture reinforces the story of price discovery. CBRS perps on Hyperliquid traded modestly in the first 13 days after launch, with daily volume between $0.6M and $9.6M as the market slowly formed around the $300 area.

Bid‑ask spreads started extremely wide at launch, with initial peaks near 50% and a first‑day median of 1.04% which tightened to 0.26% by the eve of the IPO, reflecting rising conviction in the pre‑IPO range. Volume then surged on May 14, jumping to $281M in a single session, almost six times the entire 13‑day pre‑IPO cumulative volume, and roughly 85% of lifetime CBRS perpetuals volume on Hyperliquid as traders converged on the Nasdaq open in real time.

Source: CM Market Data Feed

Open interest peaked at $57M on the day after Nasdaq listing, before rolling off as positions were unwound. Once Nasdaq provided an external reference price, spreads compressed further to a 0.07% median, validating pre-IPO perpetuals as a source of valuable price discovery.

SpaceX (SPCX) Moves Towards Public Launch

While Cerebras provided a tangible proof-of-concept, attention is now shifting to the largest IPO in history. SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite company, is set to go public on June 12th targeting a $1.77T valuation selling over 555M shares priced at $135 each.

The SpaceX pre‑IPO market on Hyperliquid went live on May 18th under the ticker xyz:SPCX on Trade.xyz, the same builder that listed CBRS. From launch, SPCX traded above the $135 IPO reference, with prices clustering around the $180–200 range and implying a valuation closer to $2.5T. As of June 8th, however, the implied share price has started to converge towards the IPO level, slipping into the $160-170 range, suggesting that some of that early optimism is being priced out as the listing approaches.

Source: CM Market Data Feed

Beyond Hyperliquid, SpaceX perps now trade across multiple centralized exchanges, including Binance, Coinbase International, Gate.io and OKX. Total open interest across these markets has risen to over $385M, with daily volumes exceeding $250M on peak days. Most liquidity and trading activity is concentrated on Hyperliquid and Binance, together accounting for approximately $1.9B of the ~$2.7B cumulative volume.

Source: CM Market Data Feed

Execution Quality & Market Impact

Execution quality on SpaceX perps has improved significantly as the market has matured. On launch, spreads and market impact were very wide on Hyperliquid, but hourly median spreads have since tightened from 1.0 bps to around 0.05 bps as of June 2nd. Based on Talos’ Market Impact Model, total execution costs on Hyperliquid now sit near 5.0 bps for trade sizes of 1000 and 10,000 contracts.

Conclusion

As this analysis showed, pre‑IPO perpetual markets can contribute meaningfully to IPO price discovery. CBRS demonstrated that a synthetic perp can trade within a few percent of the eventual cash open, and allow participation in continuous valuation discovery.

With the SpaceX IPO nearing, liquidity, open interest, and execution quality in SPCX have been building across Hyperliquid and major exchanges, illustrating how trillion‑dollar deals can develop deep perp markets even before listing. Looking ahead to offerings like OpenAI and Anthropic, we will continue to track how early signals from these 24/7 perps line up with IPO outcomes, and how secondary trading evolves as they sit alongside tokenized assets and other synthetic exposures across instruments and venues.

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^{Disclaimer: The information herein is provided for informational purposes only. Talos Trading, LLC and its affiliates (“Talos”) does not give any representations or warranties in relation to the accuracy, validity, or completeness of the information of this material, including without limitation the factual information obtained from publicly available sources considered by Talos to be reliable at the time. Talos accepts no liability for any consequences of using the information contained in this material. Any opinions or estimates expressed herein reflect a judgment made by the author(s) as of the date of publication and are subject to change without notice. Neither this material nor any copy thereof may be taken, reproduced, or redistributed, directly or indirectly, without Talos’s prior written permission. Any views or opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Talos. This communication does not constitute an offer to buy or sell, or a promotion or recommendation of, any digital asset, security, derivative, commodity, financial instrument, or product or trading strategy. This document and information are not intended to constitute investment advice or a recommendation to make (or refrain from making) any kind of investment decision and may not be relied on as such.}

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