Key Facts
- Binance announced on 21 May 2026 the launch of Pre-IPO Perpetual Contracts, a futures product that lets users trade expected valuations of private companies ahead of their public listings.
- The first contract is SPCXUSDT Pre-IPO Perpetual, based on the anticipated public market valuation of Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX), margined and settled in USDT.
- Ahead of an IPO, contracts are expected to reflect publicly available pricing signals including announced price ranges and final offering prices; after listing, they transition to reflect live market performance.
- If an IPO is postponed or cancelled, Binance says it will give advance notice of delisting and settle contracts via a transparent process, and may convert the contract into a standard TradFi perpetual once a stable mark price is available.
- Quoted on the launch is Shunyet Jan, Head of Spot and Derivatives Business at Binance; additional Pre-IPO listings are planned over time.
Binance has launched Pre-IPO Perpetual Contracts, a derivatives product that lets users take positions on the expected valuations of high-profile private companies before they list publicly. Announced on 21 May 2026, the first contract to go live on Binance Futures is SPCXUSDT Pre-IPO Perpetual, based on the anticipated public market valuation of SpaceX, with the company serving as the opening test case for the format.
How Pre-IPO Perpetuals work
The contracts are built on the same perpetual futures rails familiar to crypto derivatives traders, offering continuous pricing, leverage and — Binance says — deep liquidity. Ahead of a company’s IPO, the contracts are expected to reflect publicly available pricing signals, including announced price ranges and final offering prices. Once the underlying company begins trading on public markets, the contracts transition to reflect live market performance.
The product is designed to turn a single market event into an ongoing trading opportunity. Rather than waiting for a stock’s public debut, users can trade on expectations before final IPO pricing and beyond, with the contract price shaped by evolving sentiment. The SPCXUSDT contract is margined and settled in USDT.
Binance has built in contingency handling for the obvious risk that an IPO is delayed or never happens. If a listing is postponed or cancelled, the exchange says it will provide advance notice of any delisting and settle contracts according to a transparent process. It may also transition a contract into a standard TradFi perpetual contract framework once it determines a stable mark price can be derived for the underlying asset.
The democratization pitch — and the risk
Binance’s framing is that pre-IPO price discovery has historically been the preserve of institutional investors and private market participants, accessible through secondary share markets, SPVs and forward contracts that retail users cannot easily reach. By packaging pre-IPO exposure into a perpetual futures instrument, the exchange is opening that segment to a broader base of eligible global users.
Shunyet Jan, Head of Spot and Derivatives Business at Binance, positioned the launch within the company’s super-app strategy. “Pre-IPO perpetual futures is another example of how Binance is democratizing access to market opportunities by combining crypto-native infrastructure with major financial events,” Jan said. “This launch reflects our vision for Binance as a financial super app — one that offers access to an expanding range of financial opportunities that have traditionally been more difficult to reach.”
The structural caveat is significant. A pre-IPO perpetual has no settled spot reference until the company actually lists, which means the mark price ahead of an IPO is derived from sentiment and announced pricing signals rather than a continuously traded underlying. That makes the instrument more reflexive — and potentially more volatile — than a standard crypto or equity perpetual. Binance’s own disclosures flag that Pre-IPO Perps are subject to high market risk and price volatility.
Context: the pre-IPO perp race
Binance is not first to a SpaceX pre-IPO perpetual. On 18 May 2026, Trade.xyz — a decentralized perpetual futures platform built on Hyperliquid — launched a synthetic SPCX-USDC contract, a move that lifted Hyperliquid’s HYPE token around 7%. Binance’s entry brings the format to the largest centralized derivatives venue by volume, with the reach and liquidity that implies.
SpaceX is the natural first listing for the category. As one of the most valuable private companies in the world and the subject of persistent IPO speculation — particularly around a potential Starlink spin-out — it commands exactly the kind of sustained public attention that a sentiment-driven contract needs to generate volume. Additional Pre-IPO perpetual listings will be introduced over time, Binance said, without naming the next candidates.
How it fits Binance’s broader strategy
The launch caps an unusually active month of Binance product announcements aimed at extending the platform beyond core crypto trading. May has also brought the Withdraw Protection security feature, the Binance Pay QR payments expansion, and the Binance Online virtual event featuring CZ and BlackRock COO Rob Goldstein. Pre-IPO Perpetuals is the most aggressive of the four in terms of extending crypto-native infrastructure into traditional finance territory.
The financial super-app thesis underpinning all of these moves is that Binance’s perpetual futures engine, USDT settlement layer and global user base can be pointed at any market event, not just crypto assets. Pre-IPO exposure is a high-visibility test of that thesis. Whether regulators in major jurisdictions view a retail-accessible, leveraged instrument tracking an unlisted company’s “anticipated valuation” the same way Binance does is the open question the product will have to navigate market by market.
FAQ
What are Binance Pre-IPO Perpetual Contracts?
They are perpetual futures contracts that let eligible Binance users take positions on the anticipated public market valuation of private companies before those companies list on public exchanges. The first contract is SPCXUSDT Pre-IPO Perpetual, based on SpaceX’s anticipated valuation, margined and settled in USDT. Additional listings are planned over time.
What happens if the IPO is delayed or cancelled?
Binance says it will provide advance notice of any delisting and settle affected contracts according to a transparent, predefined process. The exchange may also convert a Pre-IPO Perpetual into a standard TradFi perpetual contract once it determines that a stable mark price can be derived for the underlying asset.
How is the contract priced before the company lists?
Ahead of an IPO, the contract is expected to reflect publicly available pricing signals, including announced price ranges and final offering prices. Once the company begins trading publicly, the contract transitions to reflect live market performance. Because there is no continuously traded underlying before listing, Binance flags that Pre-IPO Perps carry high market risk and price volatility.
Binance’s Pre-IPO Perpetuals turn one of the most closely guarded corners of traditional finance into a retail-accessible, continuously traded instrument — a genuinely novel proposition, and one whose significance will be defined less by the SpaceX debut than by how regulators and users react to leveraged trading on companies that have not yet sold a single public share. As FinanceFeeds notes, nothing here constitutes investment advice, and the product’s own risk disclosures are unusually pointed for good reason.
