Crypto ( CRCW ) traders are betting that Unitree Robotics will be worth more than four times its IPO valuation when the Chinese robot maker debuts on the public markets.

Unitree priced its Shanghai STAR Market offering at 150.80 yuan ($22.37) per share, valuing the company at roughly $9 billion. Pre-IPO perpetual contracts trading through Hyperliquid, however, were between $92 and $94 on Friday, equivalent to a valuation of about $38 billion, blockchain analytics firm Allium said in a report.

The premium reflects lofty expectations for one of China's closely watched robotics companies. Founded in Hangzhou in 2016, Unitree makes four-legged and humanoid robots for research, industrial and consumer applications. Revenue reached $253 million last year, up 335%, while humanoid robot shipments topped 5,500, according to Allium's report.

The firm’s IPO was reportedly 8000 times oversubscribed by retail traders, with trading expected to begin between Aug. 17 and Aug. 21.

Pre-IPO perps

Unitree's public-market debut is also shaping up to be the latest in a corner of crypto derivatives that has recently expanded rapidly: pre-IPO perpetual futures.

Hyperliquid rose to prominence as an onchain venue for perpetual futures, derivatives that allow traders to take leveraged long or short positions without an expiration date. Markets built on its infrastructure have since expanded the concept beyond crypto into commodities like oil and gold, and most recently, into private companies preparing to go public.

Pre-IPO perps don’t provide ownership in the underlying company, and positions cannot be converted into actual shares. What they enable is a synthetic market for traders to speculate on a company's valuation before its shares begin trading, with the price expected to converge toward the public stock once a reference market becomes available.

Recent listings have given traders reason to pay attention to that price-discovery mechanism.

A pre-IPO contract tracking Chinese memory-chip maker CXMT came within 2.5% of its Shanghai opening price at the bell in July, Allium analysts noted.

Hyperliquid traders also correctly anticipated in June that Elon Musk’s SpaceX (SPCX) would debut higher on the stock market than its $135 IPO price.

Painful convergence

Unitree has already attracted meaningful activity. There are two Hyperliquid markets — operated by Trade.xyz and Paragon — and altogether have accumulated $9.1 million in open interest and about $59 million in turnover, according to Allium.

The contracts traded just 1.6% apart on average when both markets were active, and traded near $92 and $94 most recently, translating to a more than 300% upside from the IPO price.

That fourfold premium also means Unitree could have a blockbuster debut and still leave leveraged bulls nursing steep losses.

“Unitree can open at twice its IPO price and still liquidate a third of long exposure,” Allium said.

An opening around $45, double the IPO price, would still be about 52% below the current perp price and could liquidate roughly 33% of long exposure, the analysts said. At the other extreme, a $128 opening price (nearly 6x from the IPO price) could liquidate an estimated 53% of the short positions, the report said. If shares open at around where the perps trade, nothing moves, and neither side is liquidated.

Positioning on Trade.xyz, the bigger market of the two, is almost evenly split, with $6.5 million long and $6.6 million short. However, smaller traders are more bearish: bets below $50,000 are 70% short by value.

“Any open away from today's price forces one side of this market out,” Allium said.

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