When SpaceX's initial public offering launches on Thursday, it may have an outsized impact on crypto, potentially triggering an initial rotation out of digital assets before bolstering trading volumes of tokenized shares and SpaceX-linked perpetual futures offered by exchanges such as Hyperliquid, Binance and others.

With SpaceX reportedly setting aside up to 30% of IPO shares for retail investors, some have argued that the offering could prompt investors to exit riskier assets, including crypto, to buy shares in the high-profile company run by Elon Musk, who remains a popular figure among many retail investors who hold Bitcoin and Ethereum.

"Crypto is a funding currency for a lot of this," GSR's Global Head of Over-the-Counter Trading Spencer Hallarn told Reuters. "We've got to find $75 billion for this IPO, and it's got to come from somewhere."

SpaceX said its targeting a $135 price for its IPO shares to raise $75 billion, giving it an anticipated $1.77 trillion market cap.

Some analysts have suggested that SpaceX's upcoming public offering — and potentially future IPOs from OpenAI and Anthropic — may have contributed to recent drawdowns in crypto markets that have pushed both Bitcoin and Ethereum lower in recent days.

"Bitcoin is being tapped to fund the market’s upcoming hot ball of money trades: SpaceX, Anthropic, whatever else everyone suddenly 'has to own,'" Jeff Park, a Bitwise adviser, recently said while weighing in on bitcoin's price slump.

K33's Head of Research, Vetle Lunde, said on Wednesday that investor anticipation for hot IPOs like SpaceX's may be pushing Bitcoin's price lower. SpaceX's IPO price of $135 values the company at nearly $1.8 trillion, according to CNBC.

SpaceX-linked crypto trading

Aside from the potential for capital rotation, SpaceX's shares have already fueled significant trading activity across crypto markets, even before the stock begins trading publicly.

Talos said pre-IPO perpetual futures, such as those tied to SpaceX, “have emerged as a new venue for valuation discovery, allowing investors to express views on private companies before they reach public markets.”

The company said SpaceX perpetuals are trading at about $155, above the $135 IPO price. That activity has generated more than $385 million in open interest and $2.7 billion in cumulative volume across exchanges, including Hyperliquid, Binance and OKX, according to Talos, which provides trading, portfolio management, and data infrastructure.

"Crypto-native markets are enabling around-the-clock trading and transparent valuation signals ahead of major public listings," Talos VP of International Markets Samar Sen said.

Also on Wednesday, Bitget said its tokenized SpaceX IPO subscription, offered through xStocks, was oversubscribed, growing from "an initial $3 million allocation to $13 million as demand surged."

While that is barely a drop in the bucket for a company valued at nearly $1.8 trillion, it does suggest meaningful demand for tokenized exposure to high-profile companies like SpaceX. For many investors outside the U.S., purchasing shares in publicly traded American companies can otherwise be difficult or impossible.

"The speed and scale of demand here reflects something the traditional IPO system was never designed to accommodate, crypto-native users with capital conviction and no tolerance for gatekeepers," Bitget Wallet COO Alvin Kan said. "Self-custodial wallets are becoming a serious channel for capital markets access."

Crypto exchanges Kraken and Bybit also offer access to SpaceX IPO shares on their platforms.

Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, which derives most of its user base from outside the U.S., offers stock-linked perpetual products to non-U.S. customers.

Robinhood, which will provide U.S. customers access to SpaceX's IPO, is also positioned to offer a tokenized version of the company's stock to European users. The company began offering EU customers exposure to tokenized derivatives tied to SpaceX shares nearly a year ago.