Investors earn millions betting on SpaceX before its IPO through crypto futures and secondary markets

SpaceX hasn’t even started trading yet, and some investors are already sitting on life-changing returns. The company filed its S-1 registration in May 2026 with plans to list shares at $135 each, targeting a valuation of roughly $1.77 trillion. That would make it the largest initial public offering in history, with a fundraising target of approximately $75 billion.

Pre-IPO investors who bought in at earlier valuations, around $350 billion in late 2024, are now looking at a roughly fivefold increase on paper.

The secondary market gold rush

Secondary shares have been actively trading on platforms like Forge Global, where prices have hovered around $595 per share, and Hiive, where they’ve been listed near $674. Both prices represent a significant premium to the planned $135 IPO price.

Trading is anticipated to begin as early as June 12, 2026.

Crypto traders found a side door

Around May 18, 2026, Hyperliquid launched a cash-settled perpetual futures contract tied to SpaceX’s valuation, allowing traders to place leveraged bets on what SpaceX was worth without ever owning a single share of actual equity.

The contract’s reference prices initially implied valuations near $1.78 trillion, closely tracking the expected IPO valuation. Valuations priced into the contract then spiked above $2 trillion as speculative fever took hold. A 45% flash crash ripped through the contract, liquidating over $1.5 million in positions.

The Bitcoin connection

SpaceX holds more than 18,000 BTC, valued at approximately $1.3 billion. That makes SpaceX one of the largest corporate Bitcoin holders in the world, sitting alongside companies like MicroStrategy and Tesla. When a company heading for a $1.77 trillion valuation holds $1.3 billion in BTC, Bitcoin represents less than 0.1% of the total valuation.

What this means for investors

Hyperliquid’s perpetual futures contract demonstrated that DeFi can create liquid, leveraged exposure to assets that don’t even trade publicly yet. The $1.5 million in liquidations during the flash crash was a relatively small number, but it happened in what was essentially a beta product.

The investors who got in at the $350 billion valuation in late 2024 are the clearest winners regardless of what happens next. Whether the post-IPO market treats new buyers as kindly is an entirely different question, and it’s one that $75 billion worth of new shares are about to answer.

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