HYPE Token Surges 7% as SpaceX Pre-IPO Contract Launches on Hyperliquid

Markets

What to know:

Despite a general downturn in the crypto market, with Bitcoin falling below $77,000 and other major tokens declining, Hyperliquid’s HYPE token saw a 7% increase in value over the last 24 hours.

Trade.xyz recently introduced a new futures contract, SPCX-USDC, that allows traders to speculate on the potential price of SpaceX stock before the company goes public. This contract began trading on Hyperliquid at approximately 5:16 AM UTC.

When the contract began, it was priced at $150 per share, giving SpaceX a total market value of $1.78 trillion. This calculation was based on the company having 11.87 billion shares outstanding.

This valuation falls within the $1.75 to $2 trillion range that SpaceX is aiming for when it eventually becomes publicly traded, as CoinDesk reported earlier in April after the company secretly filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SpaceX currently holds 8,285 bitcoin through Coinbase Prime. This investment will be publicly disclosed in upcoming financial filings, specifically when SpaceX files its S-1 registration statement. Accounting for this bitcoin will need to follow new rules from the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), which go into effect at the end of 2025, requiring SpaceX to determine its fair market value.

SPCX quickly rose to $216 after its launch, eventually closing at $202.89, a 12.72% increase for the day, according to Trade.xyz. In its first 24 hours, trading volume reached $33 million, with open interest totaling $21.8 million.

SPCX isn’t a traditional stock; it’s a synthetic asset that allows trading based on the price of SpaceX without actually exchanging any SpaceX shares. It uses a financial contract that follows the company’s estimated value, and mechanisms like funding rates and real-time price updates ensure it stays closely aligned with that value.

Perpetual futures are a type of financial contract that, unlike traditional futures, don’t expire. Traders can hold positions indefinitely as long as they maintain enough funds in their account (margin) and regularly pay or receive a funding rate, which is determined by the difference between the contract price and the current market price.

This approach avoids the legal issue that caused problems for pre-IPO tokens earlier today.

As a researcher following the tokenized stock market, I observed a significant drop last week – around 50% – in the value of Anthropic and OpenAI’s stock tokens on PreStocks. This decline followed announcements from both companies stating that transferring ownership of their shares via special purpose vehicles or any tokenized form is actually prohibited by their company rules.

The original PreStocks system depended on special purpose vehicles owning real company stock, a method the companies now claim isn’t allowed. In contrast, a synthetic perpetual doesn’t involve actual shares changing hands, so the private company can’t argue it’s invalid.

SPCX is the first in a new series of markets Trade.xyz plans to launch before companies go public. These markets will be ongoing, meaning they don’t have a set end date.

If the new synthetic perpetual model succeeds where the SPV model didn’t, it will likely depend on whether private companies choose to limit how derivatives are based on their valuations.

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2026-05-18 08:11