Unitree Robotics’ Shanghai IPO has drawn Hyperliquid bets implying a valuation near $38 billion, first reported by Coindesk. That gap matters because the contracts do not grant shares, and leveraged positions can be liquidated when the public stock establishes a reference price even if the debut is strong and above the IPO price.
Unitree priced its Shanghai STAR Market offering at 150.80 yuan ($22.37) per share, valuing the company at roughly $9 billion. Hyperliquid’s pre-IPO perpetuals traded between $92 and $94, equivalent to a valuation of about $38 billion.
Pre-IPO perpetuals let traders take leveraged long or short positions without an expiration date, but they provide no ownership and cannot be converted into actual shares. They create a synthetic market for speculation before listing, with prices expected to converge toward the public stock once a reference market becomes available.
A wide gap leaves leveraged traders exposed
Allium said the two Unitree markets, operated by Trade.xyz and Paragon, had accumulated $9.1 million in open interest and about $59 million in turnover. When both markets were active, the contracts traded just 1.6% apart on average.
The mismatch is the story: a strong stock-market debut can still be a bad outcome for leveraged long positions. An opening around $45, double the IPO price, would still be about 52% below the current perp price and could liquidate roughly 33% of long exposure; a $128 opening, nearly 6x the IPO price, could liquidate an estimated 53% of short positions.
Positioning on Trade.xyz, the larger market, is almost evenly split, with $6.5 million long and $6.6 million short. Smaller traders were more bearish: bets below $50,000 were 70% short by value.
Allium reported that Unitree, founded in Hangzhou in 2016, makes four-legged and humanoid robots for research, industrial and consumer applications. Revenue reached $253 million last year, up 335%, while humanoid robot shipments topped 5,500.
The offering was reportedly 8,000 times oversubscribed by retail traders, with trading expected to begin between Aug. 17 and Aug. 21. “Any open away from today's price forces one side of this market out,” Allium said.