Robot maker Unitree’s IPO surges 600%, outpacing crypto traders’ premarket bets

Crypto traders spent the days before Unitree Robotics’ Shanghai listing pricing the company at more than four times its IPO valuation. The stock opened even higher.

Unitree, a Hangzhou company that makes humanoid and four-legged robots, opened at 1,100 yuan on Wednesday, 629% above its IPO price of 150.8 yuan. The first trade valued the company at about 445 billion yuan, or $66 billion.

A synthetic Unitree market running on Hyperliquid had traded around $92 to $94 last week, implying a valuation near $38 billion, according to Allium.

That put the actual opening roughly 75% above the price crypto traders had settled on before a single public share changed hands.

The contract is a perpetual future, or a cash-settled bet on Unitree’s share price that does not give traders ownership in the company. It was launched by outside developer xyz.trade using Hyperliquid’s infrastructure and trades around the clock, giving investors a place to put money behind a view on the IPO before Shanghai opened.

Traders were far more bullish than Unitree’s bankers. The IPO priced the company near $9 billion, while the perp had it closer to $38 billion.

The contract raced higher once the stock began trading. UNITREE-$USDC was around $121 on Wednesday morning, up about 20% over 24 hours, after briefly trading above $140. Trading volume reached $64 million and open positions were worth about $29 million.

Unitree shares also came back from the 1,100 yuan opening and were recently around 884 yuan, still nearly six times the IPO price.

This is the second big test this summer for crypto markets trying to put a price on a company before Wall Street or another stock exchange gets the chance.

SpaceX gave them an early win, as CoinDesk reported. The night before its June listing, perpetual futures were pricing the stock at the equivalent of roughly $170 a share. SpaceX traded above $176 during its first session and closed at $161, almost exactly where crypto traders had expected first-day demand to land.

The SpaceX market was much larger. Open interest on its Hyperliquid contract reached about $216 million immediately before the IPO, with more than $150 million changing hands over 24 hours.

Compared to that, Unitree’s roughly $29 million of open positions gives a much smaller pool of capital a role in setting the pre-IPO price.

As such, the Unitree market itself warns traders about low liquidity, high volatility and increased liquidation risk. The contract allows leverage of as much as 10 times, meaning relatively small price moves can force traders out of their positions.