Unitree Robotics, a manufacturer of humanoid and four-legged robots based in Hangzhou, China, smashed the Wall Street’s expectations on its stock market debut this week. The stock price of the robotics company opened at 1,100 yuan, up over 600% compared to the company’s IPO price of 150.8 yuan per share. By worth, the company’s market value peaked at almost $66 billion.
What makes this especially notable for crypto watchers is that Hyperliquid, a decentralized derivatives exchange known for its perpetual futures markets, had already been running a synthetic Unitree contract in the days leading up to the listing.
That market had priced the company near $38 billion, meaning traders active on Hyperliquid were pricing in a valuation nearly four times the IPO price, yet Shanghai’s actual opening still landed about 75% above even that bullish crypto-market estimate.
Unitree shares soar 629% after robot maker raises $905m in Shanghai IPO https://t.co/4KatOU4bu8
— Nikkei Asia (@NikkeiAsia) August 19, 2026
How Hyperliquid Traders Called The IPO Before Shanghai Opened?
In the run-up to Wednesday’s listing, a third-party developer known as xyz.trade built a synthetic trading contract for Unitree using Hyperliquid’s infrastructure, giving crypto traders a round-the-clock venue to speculate on the robotics maker’s valuation before a single public share ever changed hands. That contract, according to data from Allium, traded between roughly $92 and $94 last week, implying a company valuation near $38 billion.
Compare that to the IPO’s actual pricing of closer to $9 billion, and it’s clear crypto traders were already betting heavily against the conservative bankers’ valuation well before Shanghai trading opened. Once the stock did begin trading, the momentum carried straight into the crypto market too. The UNITREE-USDC contract on Hyperliquid climbed to around $121 Wednesday morning, up roughly 20% over 24 hours after briefly touching above $140, with trading volume reaching $64 million and open positions totaling about $29 million.
A Rare Win For Crypto’s Pre-IPO Price Discovery Experiment
This marks the second high-profile test this summer of whether crypto-based perpetual markets can accurately forecast how a stock will trade before traditional exchanges open.
The first came with SpaceX’s June listing, where a Hyperliquid perpetual contract priced the stock at roughly $170 a share the night before its debut, a figure that turned out almost eerily close to where SpaceX actually closed on its first trading day.
That SpaceX market carried significantly more weight too, with open interest reaching about $216 million right before the IPO and more than $150 million in volume changing hands within 24 hours, dwarfing Unitree’s much thinner $29 million in open positions.
Liquidity Gaps & Leverage Risk Still Loom Large
The Unitree contract itself has built-in warnings about poor liquidity, strong volatility, and elevated liquidation risk despite the positive narrative. This is especially true considering that the market permits leverage up to ten times.
That kind of leverage means even modest price swings can force traders out of their positions rapidly. This risk became visible almost immediately after the listing, when funding on the Unitree contract turned slightly negative at around -0.13%, meaning traders betting on a price decline were effectively paying those holding bullish positions just to keep their trades open.
Meanwhile, Unitree’s actual shares pulled back somewhat from their initial 1,100 yuan opening, settling recently around 884 yuan, still nearly six times the original IPO price.
What This Means For Crypto’s Role in Pricing Future IPOs
Taken together, these two case studies tell a more nuanced story than a simple win or loss for crypto-based price discovery. SpaceX demonstrated that a well-capitalized perpetual futures market on Hyperliquid could land remarkably close to a real-world IPO’s opening range.
Unitree flipped that script, showing crypto traders correctly identified an IPO that looked significantly undervalued, yet still couldn’t quite predict just how aggressively the public market would ultimately price it. For an industry increasingly experimenting with pricing traditional assets ahead of their official listings, Unitree’s debut is a reminder that even sophisticated, leveraged crypto markets have real limits when facing genuine market euphoria.
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