In June the volume of perpetual contracts on shares of companies before they go public (pre-IPO perpetual futures) on crypto exchanges reached roughly $12 billion — that is 6,000 times more than in March.
The reason for the spike is traders' desire to gain access to the largest technology companies.
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The share of perpetual pre-IPO contracts in crypto stock trading reached 55%
Perpetual pre-IPO contracts let traders bet on private companies before their shares go public. Such contracts reflect a company's expected valuation but do not grant ownership of its shares.
According to CryptoQuant, the trading volume of these instruments grew from $2 million in March to $715 million in May, and in June it jumped to roughly $12 billion.
Pre-IPO contracts have become part of a broader trend — the migration of traditional assets to crypto exchanges. Perpetual contracts on oil, metals and stocks are already traded on exchanges. In June, perpetual pre-IPO contracts accounted for 55% of the entire market for perpetual contracts on stocks on crypto exchanges. For comparison, in May their share was only 5%.
"The growth in interest coincided with the emergence of perpetual pre-IPO contracts on such companies as SpaceX, OpenAI and Quantinuum, as well as with the expansion of the supply of shares on crypto platforms," the report notes.
Binance took 83% of the perpetual pre-IPO contract market in June
The largest market share, according to CryptoQuant, belongs to Binance. In June the exchange handled pre-IPO contract trades worth $10.3 billion — 20 times more than in May. It now accounts for 83% of the entire pre-IPO contract market. Second place goes to Bitget with a volume of $1.3 billion for June.
In June several private companies went public at once. Quantinuum has been trading on Nasdaq since June 4 under the ticker QNT, and SpaceX debuted on the exchange on June 12 under the ticker SPCX. For OpenAI the offering date has not yet been announced, but the company has already filed a confidential S-1 application with the SEC.
Source: BeInCrypto
