SpaceX's $1.8T IPO sucks $250B in demand — and maybe the air out of crypto 🪐

The initial public offering of Elon Musk's SpaceX is running roughly four times oversubscribed, with more than $250 billion in investor demand chasing a $75 billion raise at a $1.8 trillion valuation, the largest public offering ever, according to Reuters. Pricing is expected Thursday, with trading slated to begin Friday at $135 per share. The offering has been structured as a fixed-price transaction, leaving the $135 figure as a take-it-or-leave-it level rather than a price range subject to bookbuild revision. "I'm seeing this exactly as the classic pre-mega-IPO liquidity squeeze playing out in real time," Bitrue Research Institute research lead Andri Fauzan Adziima told Cointelegraph. "The tanking in crypto and tech stocks right now isn't random, it's the direct 'IPO tax' from SpaceX's record-breaking deal, with pricing tomorrow and trading Friday at $135 for a $1.8 trillion valuation," he said, describing the rotation as "temporary" rather than the start of a broader bear market.

The IPO's appetite has coincided with a sharp pullback across risk assets. U.S. tech stocks have fallen over the past five days, and crypto markets have shed more than $180 billion in market capitalization over the past week, a move some analysts have linked to investors raising cash to participate in the SpaceX deal. The implied first-day premium has also compressed on crypto venues: Hyperliquid's 5x-leveraged SPCX perpetual traded near $157 on Wednesday, down about 27% from a mid-May launch of roughly $216 and off a brief high near $230. The contract, which is cash-settled and carries no claim to SpaceX shares, still prices the company about 16% above the $135 IPO price, compared with an implied premium of roughly 60% in May.

Crypto exchanges have rolled out their own SPCX products. Binance, Coinbase, Kraken and Bybit have all launched pre-IPO perpetual futures for the ticker this month, and Binance's contracts have generated $2.1 billion in cumulative trading volume across 18 days, with participation from more than 130 countries, according to Shunyet Jan, head of spot and derivatives at Binance. "Strong early traction for Binance's pre-IPO perpetual futures reflects growing user interest in gaining regulated-style market exposure to high-profile private companies through this native product," Jan told Cointelegraph. On Hyperliquid, SPCX perpetual volume reached $70 million over the past 24 hours.

Wall Street coverage has begun ahead of the listing. Oppenheimer initiated SpaceX with an outperform rating and a $190 price target, representing upside from the expected $135 IPO price, citing the company's combination of space-based infrastructure and AI-driven technologies alongside its terrestrial computing capabilities. The firm has also pointed to SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet business as a major revenue and profitability driver, and the company has publicly cited a $23 trillion market opportunity tied to its AI offerings. Retail demand for the IPO is projected to exceed $70 billion, according to a recent report.