Pre-IPO perpetual futures volume on crypto exchanges exploded to roughly $12 billion in June — a 6,000-fold increase from March, according to CryptoQuant data. The products, which let traders speculate on companies that haven't yet gone public, now account for 55% of all perpetual equity trading on crypto platforms, up from just 5% in May. The ramp has been staggering: $2 million in March, $715 million in May, and then $12 billion in June.
How we got here
The growth is part of a broader push to trade traditional assets — oil, metals, and equity perpetuals — on crypto rails. But the real fuel has been market interest in three names: SpaceX, OpenAI, and Quantinuum. Quantinuum listed on Nasdaq on June 4 under ticker QNT. SpaceX followed on June 12 under ticker SPCX. OpenAI filed a confidential S-1 with the SEC but has not set an IPO date, leaving its pre-IPO contract as the one with no end date in sight.
Binance dominates
Binance captured 83% of the pre-IPO perpetuals market in June, processing $10.3 billion in volume — a 20-fold increase over May. Bitget was a distant second with $1.3 billion. The concentration means Binance is effectively the venue for this niche, at least for now. A single exchange controlling that much of a rapidly growing market tends to draw regulatory attention, though no action has been announced.
What comes next
OpenAI's IPO remains the big unknown. Until the SEC clears its registration, traders are left guessing on timing. If and when the company sets a date, pre-IPO volumes could jump again. For now, the market is betting on a name that hasn't officially decided to go public — a reminder that these contracts live entirely on crypto infrastructure, with all the settlement risk that implies.
