Unitree Robotics opened on the Shanghai STAR Market at 1,100 yuan a share on Wednesday. That is 629% above the 150.8 yuan IPO price, and a first print worth about 445 billion yuan, or $66 billion.
Crypto traders had already decided the bankers were light. A Unitree perpetual on Hyperliquid, listed by xyz.trade, had been trading around $92 to $94, implying something closer to $38 billion — about four times the roughly $9 billion IPO valuation. Shanghai opened it at seven times.
The perp is a cash-settled bet. It does not buy the stock. It just lets people lean on an IPO before the exchange opens, around the clock, with up to 10 times leverage. After the listing, UNITREE-USDC was near $121, volume about $64 million, open positions about $29 million.
Shares later traded around 884 yuan, still nearly six times the offer. Funding on the perp sat near minus 0.13%, which is the market paying the longs to stay in. Small pool, loud move.
SpaceX in June was the clean version of this experiment. Hyperliquid had the name around $170 the night before; the stock traded above $176 and closed at $161. Open interest there was about $216 million. Unitree is a thinner book and a wider miss.
The read is not that crypto got the direction wrong. It got the cheapness right and still undershot the open. Hangzhou’s robot maker just showed what a STAR Market first print can do when the perp is not the venue that sets the price.
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