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Unitree Robotics is going public. The Hangzhou-based robotics firm set its IPO price at 150.80 yuan — roughly $22.37 per share — putting its official valuation at around $9 billion on the Shanghai STAR Market. But traders on Hyperliquid aren’t buying that number. Not even close.
Pre-IPO perpetual contracts on the platform are pricing Unitree at closer to $38 billion, with contract prices running between $92 and $94, per blockchain analytics firm Allium. That’s a gap of nearly $29 billion between what the company says it’s worth and what speculative traders think it’ll be worth once it actually starts trading. Pretty wild spread, even by crypto standards.
Unitree’s Numbers Are Hard to Ignore
Founded in 2016, Unitree built its name on four-legged and humanoid robots deployed across a range of sectors. Last year, revenues hit $253 million — a 335% jump — and the company shipped over 5,500 humanoid robots. Those are big numbers for a firm that’s still relatively young, and they probably explain why the IPO has reportedly been oversubscribed by 8,000 times. Trading is anticipated to begin somewhere between August 17 and August 21.
Eight thousand times oversubscribed. That’s not enthusiasm — that’s a frenzy.
The oversubscription alone tells you retail appetite for robotics and tech-driven companies out of China is running hot right now. Unitree isn’t just selling shares; it’s basically selling a piece of what a lot of investors see as the next big industrial wave. Whether the actual market debut reflects that enthusiasm or crashes back toward the official IPO price is the question everyone’s sitting with.
How Hyperliquid’s Pre-IPO Futures Actually Work
Hyperliquid has become a go-to platform for pre-IPO perpetual futures — derivatives that let traders speculate on a company’s valuation before shares hit a public exchange. Important distinction: these contracts don’t convert into actual stock. No ownership changes hands. It’s a synthetic market, basically a bet on where the price lands, not a claim on the company itself.
That might sound like a niche product, but the track record is getting harder to dismiss. Allium pointed to CXMT, a Chinese memory-chip maker, whose pre-IPO contract prices aligned closely with its actual opening price. Hyperliquid traders also called a higher market debut for SpaceX compared to its IPO price. So it’s not just noise — there’s at least some signal in these markets, even if the mechanism is still pretty new.
Two markets on Hyperliquid are running Unitree contracts right now. Trade.xyz and Paragon together reported $9.1 million in open interest and $59 million in turnover. Trade.xyz is the bigger of the two, and positions there are almost evenly split between longs and shorts — though smaller traders seem to be leaning short.
The Liquidation Risk Nobody’s Talking About Enough
Here’s where it gets dicey. Allium ran the numbers on what happens to leveraged positions depending on where Unitree actually opens.
If the stock debuts around $45 — well below the speculative contract range — roughly 33% of long positions face liquidation. Flip it the other way: if Unitree opens near $128, about 53% of short positions get wiped out. That’s a massive chunk of traders on either side of the trade potentially getting crushed by a single opening price.
And that’s the thing about pre-IPO perpetual futures that doesn’t always get enough attention. The leverage makes the upside exciting, but the downside can be brutal and fast. A stock doesn’t have to move dramatically for liquidations to pile up — it just has to open somewhere the market didn’t expect.
Unitree’s IPO is probably one of the more watched market events in robotics this year. The 335% revenue growth, the humanoid robot shipments, the absurd oversubscription — it’s a compelling story on paper. Whether the actual debut price lands closer to $22 or closer to the $92–$94 range that Hyperliquid traders are sitting on is unclear. No one knows yet.
What’s clear is that $59 million in turnover has already moved through these contracts. Traders aren’t waiting around.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Unitree Robotics’ official IPO valuation?
Unitree Robotics priced its IPO at 150.80 yuan ($22.37) per share, giving it an official valuation of approximately $9 billion on the Shanghai STAR Market.
Why are Hyperliquid traders valuing Unitree at $38 billion?
Pre-IPO perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid are trading between $92 and $94, implying a valuation of around $38 billion — far above the official IPO price, per blockchain analytics firm Allium.
