Pre-IPO perpetual traders on Hyperliquid are pricing Unitree at roughly $38 billion, far above the $9 billion valuation implied by its Shanghai IPO, creating a fragile leverage overhang ahead of the stock’s actual debut. According to analysts at Allium, the contracts traded between $92 and $94 on Friday, while Unitree’s STAR Market IPO was priced at 150.80 yuan, equivalent to about $22.37 per share.
The gap matters because pre-listing perpetuals are synthetic derivatives, not tokenized shares. They allow leveraged bets on a company’s valuation before public trading but cannot be converted into equity. When Unitree shares begin trading, expected between Aug. 17 and Aug. 21, the perp price will have to converge with the public market price. Allium warned that even a strong debut around $45 per share, double the IPO price, could liquidate roughly 33% of long positions. A much stronger open near $128 could wipe out around 53% of short positions. Only an opening close to the $92 to $94 pre-market range would allow both sides to avoid forced liquidations.
Positioning data cited by Allium shows the two Unitree markets on Hyperliquid have combined open interest of about $9.1 million and total turnover near $59 million. On Trade.xyz, the larger market, positioning was nearly evenly split, but smaller traders with positions under $50,000 were about 70% short by value. Unitree itself posted revenue of $253 million last year, up 335%, and shipped more than 5,500 humanoid robots. Its IPO was reportedly oversubscribed by retail investors around 8,000 times.
Bybit has also joined the trend, launching pre-IPO perpetual contracts for Unitree and Moonshot AI. The Dubai-based exchange said its TradFi perpetuals lineup now covers more than 200 products since launching in April. Past Hyperliquid pre-IPO contracts have shown accuracy: a contract tracking Chinese memory-chip maker CXMT came within 2.5% of its Shanghai opening price in July, and traders correctly anticipated SpaceX debuting above its $135 IPO price in June. Tokenized stocks more broadly have reached $2.38 billion in distributed value, according to RWA.xyz, with holder counts up over 123% in the past 30 days.
The Unitree trade is therefore a stress test for decentralized pre-listing price discovery. The risk is not simply the IPO itself, but the leveraged book that has already formed around a much higher synthetic valuation. If the real price begins to speak and it is far below the perp market, Hyperliquid’s risk engine will process liquidations automatically, but that does not guarantee an orderly repricing.
