Bybit has expanded its synthetic trading offering with perpetual contracts tied to Unitree Robotics and Moonshot AI, taking its TradFi perpetual lineup beyond 200 products.
The new contracts give traders leveraged price exposure to the two private companies without providing ownership of their shares. Both UNITREEUSDT and MOONSHOTUSDT are settled in USDT and offer leverage of up to 10x.
Bybit said its TradFi perpetual platform, launched in April, now covers more than 200 instruments across equities, ETFs, commodities, indices and pre-IPO companies.
Unitree Contract Arrives Ahead of Shanghai IPO
Unitree is the more advanced of the two companies in terms of its public-market plans.
The robotics company has priced its Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market IPO at 150.80 yuan per share. The offering covers approximately 40.45 million shares, representing 10% of the company’s post-offering share capital, with gross proceeds expected to reach about 6.10 billion yuan.
Investor demand has been exceptionally strong. Retail subscriptions reportedly exceeded the number of shares available by more than 8,000 times, highlighting the significant interest surrounding Unitree’s public-market debut.
The upcoming IPO could provide traders with a more concrete reference point for Bybit’s synthetic UNITREEUSDT contract once the shares begin trading.
However, the perpetual contract remains separate from the actual equity. Buying UNITREEUSDT does not give traders voting rights, dividends or ownership in Unitree.
Moonshot AI Listing Remains Uncertain
Moonshot AI is at an earlier stage of the IPO process.
Bybit launched MOONSHOTUSDT on August 7, offering 24/7 trading and leverage of up to 10x. The contract uses an estimated one billion shares as part of its pricing structure and currently carries a fixed pre-IPO funding rate of 0.005% every four hours.
Bybit describes a Moonshot IPO as anticipated, but there is currently no confirmed listing timetable.
Reports have suggested that the Chinese AI company is preparing for a potential Hong Kong listing. Moonshot has disputed reports that it had filed for an August IPO, while other reporting has indicated that the company is still restructuring ahead of a potential public offering.
As a result, the MOONSHOTUSDT price represents the market’s assessment of Moonshot’s potential value rather than the price of publicly traded shares.
Pre-IPO Perpetuals Become a Growing Crypto Exchange Trend
Bybit’s latest listings are part of a broader movement among crypto exchanges toward offering synthetic exposure to private companies before they enter public markets.
The exchange previously introduced leveraged perpetual exposure to SpaceX, while Coinbase has also expanded its pre-IPO perpetual products to companies including OpenAI and Anthropic.
These contracts are different from tokenized stocks.
A tokenized stock can represent an economic or legal interest in an underlying security, depending on its structure. A synthetic perpetual contract, by contrast, is a derivative whose value tracks an underlying reference price without transferring ownership of the referenced company.
That distinction becomes particularly important for private companies, where there is no continuously traded public-market price.
Bybit warns that its pre-IPO contract prices may differ significantly from the eventual IPO price. Traders using leverage can also lose their entire margin if the market moves sharply against their positions.
What Happens After an IPO?
Unitree’s expected listing will provide the first major test of how Bybit’s synthetic pre-IPO products transition into public-market instruments.
According to Bybit, a pre-IPO perpetual can be converted into a standard TradFi perpetual once the underlying company completes its IPO. The contract may also be rebased when the actual share structure and market price become available.
For UNITREEUSDT, the 150.80-yuan IPO price should provide a useful benchmark once public trading begins.
Moonshot AI presents a different situation because its listing remains uncertain. Until the company confirms a public offering and provides an official timetable, MOONSHOTUSDT remains primarily a market-driven estimate of the company’s potential valuation.
Bybit also reserves the ability to delist or settle a pre-IPO contract if the anticipated listing is cancelled, significantly restructured or otherwise fails to proceed.
The expansion highlights a growing intersection between crypto derivatives and private-market investing, but traders should distinguish price exposure from actual ownership.
