Unitree Robotics delivered a bigger-than-expected debut in Shanghai, with its shares opening well above both the official IPO price and the valuation implied by a Hyperliquid perpetual contract.

Before the listing, crypto traders had already valued the robotics company at more than four times its IPO valuation. Yet even that bullish estimate fell short once Unitree began trading.

The Hangzhou-based maker of humanoid and quadruped robots opened Wednesday at 1,100 yuan ($163.12), a 629% jump from its IPO price of 150.8 yuan. The opening price valued Unitree at roughly 445 billion yuan ($66 billion).

By comparison, Unitree’s synthetic perpetual on Hyperliquid had traded around $92-$94 the previous week, implying a valuation of about $38 billion, according to Allium. The company’s actual opening valuation was therefore roughly 75% higher than the crypto market’s pre-listing estimate.

Hyperliquid Traders Positioned Ahead of the IPO

The Unitree contract is a perpetual futures product that lets traders speculate on the company’s stock price without holding the underlying shares.

Created by third-party developer xyz.trade and powered by Hyperliquid infrastructure, the contract trades around the clock, giving crypto traders a way to price Unitree ahead of its traditional market debut.

The gap between the valuations was significant. Unitree’s IPO valued the company at about $9 billion, while the Hyperliquid contract implied a valuation closer to $38 billion.

After trading began in Shanghai, the crypto contract moved even higher. UNITREE-USDC climbed to around $121 Wednesday morning, gaining about 20% in 24 hours after briefly topping $140.

Trading volume reached roughly $64 million, while open interest was about $29 million.

SpaceX Offered a Different Price-Discovery Test

Unitree is the second major company this summer for which crypto traders attempted to establish a price before a traditional stock-market debut.

SpaceX was the earlier example. Before its June listing, perpetual futures on Hyperliquid priced the company at roughly $170 per share.

SpaceX opened above $176 before ending its first session at $161, coming close to the level indicated by the crypto market beforehand.

However, the SpaceX contract was backed by significantly deeper liquidity. Open interest reached about $216 million before the IPO, while 24-hour trading volume topped $150 million.

Unitree’s roughly $29 million in open interest reflects a much smaller pool of capital behind its pre-IPO valuation.

Leverage Adds Risk to Unitree’s Perpetual

The Unitree contract also underscores the risks of using leveraged perpetual futures to bet on traditional equities.

The product allows leverage of up to 10 times, meaning relatively modest price swings can trigger liquidations and force traders to close their positions.

That risk became more apparent after Unitree shares began trading. Funding rates stood around negative 0.13%, indicating that traders holding short positions were paying those on the long side to maintain their trades.

The SpaceX and Unitree cases highlight two very different outcomes for crypto-based price discovery. SpaceX showed that a crypto perpetual can closely anticipate an IPO’s opening price.

Unitree, meanwhile, showed that crypto traders may correctly identify an apparently undervalued IPO while still underestimating how aggressively traditional equity markets will reprice the stock once trading begins.