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Bybit went live with a pre-IPO perpetual contract on Oura on September 22 at 13:30 UTC. The contract is called OURAUSDT, and it gives traders synthetic exposure to the smart ring company’s implied valuation — no shares, no IPO allocation, just a derivative bet on where the market thinks Oura is headed.
The product sits on Bybit’s pre-IPO perpetual desk and settles in USDT. Leverage goes up to 25x. Trading runs around the clock, which is pretty much the whole point — you don’t need to wait for a stock exchange to open, and you’re not tied to whatever the conventional IPO calendar looks like. For traders who want to get in front of a potential public offering without going through a broker or a private placement, it’s a fast, if risky, on-ramp.
No equity. Full stop.
What OURAUSDT Actually Gives You
To be clear about what this product is not: it’s not a share in Oura. It doesn’t come with shareholder rights. It won’t convert into equity when the company eventually lists publicly. The OURAUSDT contract is a derivative, which means its value is tied to the market’s perception of Oura’s worth — not to any underlying ownership stake. That’s a sharp contrast to traditional retail IPO allocations, where investors at least get actual stock.
Oura makes smart rings — wearable health-tracking devices that have built a real following in the consumer tech space. The company has attracted attention from investors and wellness enthusiasts alike, and speculation about a public offering has been circulating for a while. Bybit is essentially packaging that speculation into a tradable instrument, letting crypto-native traders take a position before any formal listing happens.
The 25x leverage ceiling is the number that jumps out. At that multiple, a relatively small move in the implied valuation can wipe out a position or produce outsized gains fast. Pre-IPO valuations are already murky — there’s no established cash market, no quarterly earnings call cadence, no analyst consensus to anchor price discovery. Layer 25x leverage on top of that, and the risk profile gets steep in a hurry.
The Broader Shift in Crypto Derivatives
Bybit isn’t doing this in a vacuum. Across the crypto derivatives space, exchanges have been pushing into territory that traditional finance long kept locked behind institutional doors. Pre-IPO exposure used to mean knowing the right venture capital contacts or getting lucky with an employee stock option plan. Now platforms are building synthetic versions of that access and selling it to retail traders with a crypto wallet.
It’s a real shift. And it’s not without complications.
The appeal is obvious — 24/7 trading, leverage, no dependency on when or whether the actual IPO happens. If Oura’s listing gets delayed or restructured, the perpetual contract keeps trading based on market sentiment rather than a specific corporate timeline. Traders can go long or short, which is something you basically can’t do with a traditional pre-IPO allocation.
But the risks stack up fast. Valuations for private companies ahead of a public debut are speculative by nature. They move on rumors, funding announcements, broader tech sector sentiment, and sometimes just vibes. Without the transparency of an established public market — audited financials, regulatory filings, real-time price discovery — traders are working with incomplete information. Even experienced derivatives traders find pre-IPO contracts a tough environment.
Bybit’s OURAUSDT product is probably best understood as a price discovery tool as much as a trading product. It lets the market express a view on what Oura is worth before the traditional mechanisms kick in. Whether that view ends up being accurate is a different question entirely.
What Traders Are Actually Signing Up For
The contract is purely speculative. That bears repeating. There’s no tangible asset backing it, no equity ownership, no claim on Oura’s future revenues or assets. The product’s value lives and dies on perceived market sentiment around the company’s potential public offering.
For traders who understand that going in — who see it as a high-risk, high-reward position rather than a backdoor into the IPO — OURAUSDT is at least a transparent instrument. Bybit is clear that it doesn’t provide shares or allocations. The settlement is in USDT. The leverage is capped at 25x.
Whether other exchanges follow with similar pre-IPO perpetual products remains unclear. No details on that from Bybit’s end. But the launch of OURAUSDT on September 22 is already a live test case for how much appetite the crypto derivatives market has for this kind of private-company speculation.
Trading opened at 13:30 UTC.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the maximum leverage on Bybit’s Oura pre-IPO contract?
Bybit’s OURAUSDT pre-IPO perpetual contract offers leverage up to 25x, with the contract settling in USDT.
Does the OURAUSDT contract give traders actual shares in Oura?
No — the contract provides synthetic exposure to Oura’s implied valuation only, with no shares, equity ownership, or IPO allocation involved.
Why It Matters
The introduction of the OURAUSDT perpetual contract by Bybit highlights the growing trend of offering derivatives linked to anticipated IPOs, allowing traders to speculate on the valuation of companies before they officially enter the public market. This move not only increases liquidity and trading options for crypto market participants but also reflects the increasing convergence between traditional finance and cryptocurrency markets, as investors seek to capitalize on expected market reactions to IPOs without holding physical shares. Such products may also attract a broader range of investors to the crypto space, further legitimizing the use of derivatives in digital asset trading.
