Onchain Markets for Companies That Aren’t Public Yet
Crypto data aggregator Defillama said it has added new pre-IPO perpetual futures markets spanning four closely watched private firms, namely Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX, and Quantinuum. The listings let traders take leveraged positions on synthetic prices tied to each company’s expected valuation, even though none of the four trades on a public stock exchange yet.
The markets are spread across several decentralized venues with Defillama noting that SpaceX now has six tracked markets, while OpenAI and Anthropic each have three and Quantinuum has two, hosted on perp-focused platforms including Aster, Lighter, and ApeX. The products are synthetic, i.e. they offer price exposure with no equity rights, settling against a market-implied estimate of each firm’s per-share value.
These contracts are perpetual futures, derivatives with no expiry date that let traders hold leveraged long or short positions indefinitely. By porting that structure onto pre-IPO names, decentralized exchanges ( DEXs) are effectively building speculative markets for private-company valuations that were once the exclusive domain of venture capital.
A Volume Race Among Perp DEXs
The new listings land amid a fierce contest for derivatives volume as Aster accounted for roughly $68 billion in 30-day perpetual DEX volume, while Lighter recorded about $50 billion over the same span (indicating substantial activity has migrated to onchain venues). Aster had already launched a synthetic SpaceX perpetual under the ticker SPCX and an OpenAI contract with up to 5x leverage before the latest expansion.
A wave of similar products has swept across the industry since May 2026, with centralized players such as OKX, Binance Futures, and Crypto.com rolling out their own pre-IPO contracts targeting OpenAI, SpaceX, and Anthropic. The trend has not been without pain, with Bitcoin.com News reporting recently that a SpaceX pre-market perpetual on Hyperliquid suffered a 45% flash crash, wiping out more than $1.5 million in leveraged positions in 30 minutes as thin liquidity gave way.
Riding the AI IPO Wave
The timing of the development is intentional as the four firms sit at the center of an enormous pipeline of expected listings. SpaceX is reportedly set to price its initial public offering (IPO) around mid-June ahead of a public debut, targeting a valuation near $1.75 trillion in what could become the largest IPO in history. Anthropic has filed confidentially and is eyeing a listing as soon as October, with OpenAI following suit (while Quantinuum, the Honeywell-backed quantum-computing firm, is also moving toward a debut).
That pipeline has spilled into crypto in more ways than one. Bitcoin.com News reported on a theory that IPO mania around SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic is draining cash from bitcoin, and separately that a multitrillion-dollar AI IPO wave was pulling capital away from digital assets as investors chase new market giants.
In any case, for onchain traders, the appeal seems to be streamlined access given pre-IPO perps offer a way to express a view on private megacaps without the gatekeeping of late-stage venture rounds (but with the leverage, thin liquidity, and flash-crash risk that come with synthetic markets).
