Crypto traders are betting that Unitree Robotics will be worth more than four times its IPO valuation when the Chinese robot maker debuts on the public markets.
Unitree priced its Shanghai STAR Market float at 150.80 yuan ($22.37) per share, placing the company’s value at around $9 billion. Ahead-of-IPO perpetual contracts traded via Hyperliquid on Friday ranged from $92 to $94, translating to a roughly $38 billion valuation, according to blockchain analytics firm Allium in a report.
The premium shows high hopes for a highly watched Chinese robotics company. Unitree began in Hangzhou in 2016 and makes four‑legged and humanoid robots for study, work, and home use. Last year, revenue rose to $253 million, up 335%. Allium says more than 5,500 humanoid robots were shipped.
Beyond the headline figures, Unitree shows steady growth. It fits a larger trend toward affordable, autonomous machines that help people at work and at home. In labs, four‑legged bots can go over rough terrain to collect data, inspect, and test things, showing abilities that beat wheeled robots on uneven ground. In factories and warehouses, modular robots offer scalable ways to move materials, pack, and check quality, cutting cycle times and labor costs. For consumers, small humanoid models are seen as help for households and learning, enabling interactive lessons and personalized tutoring. This rapid growth indicates the shift from prototype to scalable production and investor confidence that Unitree can meet rising demand as intelligent robotics markets mature.
The firm’s IPO was reportedly 8000 times oversubscribed by retail traders, with trading expected to begin between Aug. 17 and Aug. 21.
Unitree pre-IPO market on HyperliquidPre-IPO perps
Unitree’s public-market debut is also shaping up to be the latest in a corner of crypto derivatives that has recently expanded rapidly: pre-IPO perpetual futures.
Hyperliquid gained prominence as an on-chain hub for perpetual futures, derivatives that enable traders to hold leveraged long or short bets without a set expiry. Platforms built on its framework have broadened the idea beyond crypto into commodities such as oil and gold, and most recently into private firms gearing up for an initial public offering.
Pre-IPO perps don’t provide ownership in the underlying company, and positions cannot be converted into actual shares. What they enable is a synthetic market for traders to speculate on a company’s valuation before its shares begin trading, with the price expected to converge toward the public stock once a reference market becomes available.
Recent listings have given traders reason to pay attention to that price-discovery mechanism.
A pre-IPO contract tracking Chinese memory-chip maker CXMT came within 2.5% of its Shanghai opening price at the bell in July, Allium analysts noted.
Hyperliquid traders also correctly anticipated in June that Elon Musk’s SpaceX (SPCX) would debut higher on the stock market than its $135 IPO price.
Painful convergence
Unitree has already attracted meaningful activity. There are two Hyperliquid markets — operated by Trade.xyz and Paragon — and altogether have accumulated $9.1 million in open interest and about $59 million in turnover, according to Allium.
The contracts traded just 1.6% apart on average when both markets were active, and traded near $92 and $94 most recently, translating to a more than 300% upside from the IPO price.
That fourfold premium also means Unitree could have a blockbuster debut and still leave leveraged bulls nursing steep losses.
“Unitree can open at twice its IPO price and still liquidate a third of long exposure,” Allium said.
An initial price near $45, which is twice the IPO price, would still sit roughly 52% beneath the present perpetual price and could trigger liquidation of about 33% of long exposure, according to the analysts. Conversely, an opening price of $128 (nearly six times the IPO price) might liquidate an estimated 53% of short positions, the report noted. If the shares start trading close to the level of the perpetuals, nothing changes and neither side is liquidated.
Positioning on Trade.xyz, the bigger market of the two, is almost evenly split, with $6.5 million long and $6.6 million short. However, smaller traders are more bearish: bets below $50,000 are 70% short by value.
“Any position kept open away from the current price pushes one side of the market out,” Allium said.
