When SpaceX's initial public offering launches on Thursday, it may have an outsized impact on crypto, potentially triggering an initial rotation out of digital assets before bolstering trading volumes of tokenized shares and SpaceX-linked perpetual futures offered by exchanges such as Hyperliquid, Binance and others.
With SpaceX reportedly setting aside up to 30% of IPO shares for retail investors, some have argued that the offering could prompt investors to exit riskier assets, including crypto, to buy shares in the high-profile company run by Elon Musk, who remains a popular figure among many retail investors who hold Bitcoin and Ethereum.
"Crypto is a funding currency for a lot of this," GSR's Global Head of Over-the-Counter Trading Spencer Hallarn told Reuters. "We've got to find $75 billion for this IPO, and it's got to come from somewhere."
SpaceX said its targeting a $135 price for its IPO shares to raise $75 billion, giving it an anticipated $1.77 trillion market cap.
Some analysts have suggested that SpaceX's upcoming public offering — and potentially future IPOs from OpenAI and Anthropic — may have contributed to recent drawdowns in crypto markets that have pushed both Bitcoin and Ethereum lower in recent days.
