Coinbase Follows Binance With SpaceX Pre-IPO Perpetual Futures Launch

Coinbase has followed Binance in launching pre-IPO perpetual futures contracts, starting with Elon Musk's SpaceX, offering users outside the United States a way to speculate on private companies before they go public. The product, a USDC-settled perpetual futures contract that tracks SpaceX's pre-IPO valuation, allows 24/7 trading with no expiry or rollover, with profits and losses settled in USDC. The Brian Armstrong-led exchange announced that the "SPCX-PERP pre-IPO market will begin on or after 6:00am UTC on 4 June 2026," and later confirmed going into "full-trading mode," making "limit, market, stop, and stop limit orders" available to users.

Perpetual futures, or perps, let traders speculate on the direction of an asset via "long" or "short" positions without holding the underlying asset, and unlike traditional futures they have no expiration date. Upon a future IPO, positions will automatically transition into a post-IPO perpetual futures contract referencing the public listing. Coinbase said the product is intended to expand access to private market exposure, which has traditionally been limited to venture capital firms and institutional investors—though, judging by the lineup of competing launches, degens also qualify. "Pre-IPO perps are great to get exposure to private companies before they go public (outside the U.S. only for now) and to help with price discovery," Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO at Coinbase, posted on X. More pre-IPO listings will be announced "soon," including companies in technology, AI, energy, and space.

The launch comes amid intensifying competition among crypto exchanges to bring private market exposure into tokenized or synthetic form. Coinbase's move follows Binance, which launched its SPCXUSDT perpetual contract—based on the Tether stablecoin—within the past week, also tracking SpaceX's likely valuation. Kraken's parent company, Payward, announced a similar initiative Wednesday, offering tokenized access to pre-IPO companies. Bitget launched IPO Prime in April, starting with a SpaceX-linked offering, while exchanges such as OKX, Crypto.com, Hyperliquid, and Bitget have all rolled out similar pre-IPO trading products in recent weeks.

The broader push coincides with accelerating interest in tokenized real-world assets. Research from Bernstein released May 26 estimated the RWA market has grown to $51 billion, expanding 42% this year as investors seek fractional exposure to traditionally illiquid private assets. A separate Bitget report, also published May 26, found tokenized stocks still make up a low-single-digit share of the RWA market, with most activity clustered in a few big-tech names such as Tesla, Alphabet, and Microsoft trading on offshore platforms.

SpaceX remains one of the most closely watched private companies globally. The interest has grown since SpaceX revealed it had bought 18,712 Bitcoin in 2022 at an average price of roughly $35,000 per BTC—a stake retained in its IPO filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The IPO is targeted for June 12, per Reuters, and the same day Forbes reported that SpaceX's estimated IPO price of $135 per share would make Musk the first-ever trillionaire. On prediction market Myriad, owned by Decrypt's parent company Dastan, users place a 91% chance on Musk reaching the milestone net worth before July. Polymarket gives the SpaceX IPO about a 70% chance of reaching a valuation greater than $2 trillion, while the company was said to have privately considered an IPO at a valuation of $1.75 trillion.

The offering is not available to US persons at launch and is initially rolling out to "eligible users in supported jurisdictions outside the United States," reflecting restrictions on offering private market securities exposure in the country. Coinbase also warned traders that "Pre-IPO markets differ significantly from standard perpetual futures markets, carrying unique considerations and posing elevated risks"—a reminder that pre-market prices are often inaccurate and extremely volatile as new information emerges.