SpaceX's Record $75 Billion IPO Goes Live With 18,712 Bitcoin on Its Books

The Biggest IPO in History Lands on Nasdaq

SpaceX begins trading on Nasdaq today under the ticker SPCX, priced at $135 per share in an offering that aims to raise roughly $75 billion at a valuation near $1.75 trillion. It is the largest public listing in market history, and crypto investors have been feeling its gravity for weeks.

Around 30% of the offering has been set aside for retail investors, an unusually large allocation that has turned the listing into a genuine mass-market event rather than an institutional affair.

For the crypto market, today is less about rockets and more about money in motion: where it went, what SpaceX itself holds, and when it might come back.

Two Weeks of Crypto Liquidity Drain

The run-up to the listing has been costly for digital assets. Bitcoin fell below $60,000 on June 5 for the first time since September 2024, a roughly 20% drop since SpaceX filed its paperwork on May 20. Trading volumes have been compressed for two straight weeks as capital rotated toward the IPO.

The pressure compounds a difficult stretch in which crypto investment products had already recorded record outflows from crypto funds earlier this month.

Analysts see the listing itself as the release valve. Once SPCX begins trading, sidelined capital that sold crypto to participate is expected to gradually rotate back into risk assets.

SpaceX Is Quietly a Top-10 Bitcoin Holder

There is a second crypto story buried in the IPO paperwork. SpaceX’s S-1 filing disclosed that the company holds 18,712 Bitcoin, acquired for roughly $661 million, carried at a fair value of about $1.29 billion.

That makes the rocket company the seventh-largest known corporate holder of Bitcoin in the world, ahead of Coinbase. SpaceX began accumulating in early 2021, around the same time as Tesla, and keeps the coins with third-party custodians. On-chain trackers had attributed barely half that amount to the company, which explains why the disclosure caught many analysts off guard.

From today, anyone buying SPCX stock is, in a small way, buying exposure to Bitcoin, too.

Why an IPO Pulls Money Out of Crypto

The mechanics are straightforward once spelled out. The pool of risk capital in markets is finite, and a $75 billion offering must be funded with money that was previously sitting elsewhere.

For institutions, that means rebalancing portfolios and trimming positions in volatile assets to fund allocations to SPCX. For retail investors, the effect is more direct: with 30% of shares reserved for the public, many chose to sell crypto in recent weeks to free up cash for a stake in the rocket maker.

The same dynamic has played out around major listings before, but never at this scale. With OpenAI and Anthropic reportedly preparing their own offerings, analysts estimate the mega-IPO pipeline could absorb between $240 billion and $350 billion in the months ahead.

Kraken Puts Tokenized SpaceX Shares to the Test

The listing also doubles as a live experiment for crypto infrastructure. Through its xStocks program, Kraken is issuing SPCXx tokens, each backed one-to-one by actual SpaceX shares and available in more than 110 countries.

Tokenized stocks record ownership on a blockchain, allowing settlement in minutes rather than the hours traditional markets require. Today’s session is effectively a stress test: if pricing between the tokens and Nasdaq shares remains tight and settlement holds up amid heavy volume, the case for tokenizing future IPOs gets considerably stronger.

It is a notable role reversal. The asset class the IPO has been draining may end up providing the rails that carry it.

What Happens to Bitcoin After Today

The near-term question is whether the rotation reverses. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has argued that while the AI boom and major IPOs are draining liquidity, that capital could eventually rotate back into Bitcoin over the medium term.

Much depends on how SPCX trades in its first sessions. A strong debut could keep capital locked in equities and draw fresh attention to the next mega-listings. A muted one may send money back toward digital assets faster than expected. The Bitcoin price held near $63,000 ahead of the open, suggesting traders are positioned for either outcome rather than committed to one.

Flexible lock-up structures in the offering add another variable, since early holders can begin circulating shares sooner than in a typical IPO.

A Test of Crypto’s Place in Modern Markets

Today’s listing cuts both ways for digital assets. In the short term, the largest IPO in history has unquestionably pulled liquidity out of crypto and tested the market’s patience through a heavy June.

But the longer-term signals point in the other direction. The most valuable company ever to go public carries Bitcoin on its balance sheet as a matter of course, and its shares are being distributed on blockchain rails to investors in over 100 countries on day one. Crypto did not get a seat at this IPO. It got built into the plumbing.