A historic stock market debut is imminent, with SpaceX's planned $75 billion IPO set to take place in June, which could have a significant impact on the crypto market as it competes for the same liquidity. SpaceX filed a confidential S-1 with the SEC earlier this month, aiming for a $1.75 trillion valuation. If successful, this would be the largest stock market debut in history, surpassing Saudi Aramco's $29 billion record in 2019.
The listing is expected to have a significant impact on the market, with Polymarket traders assigning a 65% probability of a June listing and a 53% probability that the first-day closing market cap exceeds $2 trillion. SpaceX is not alone, as OpenAI and Anthropic are also planning to go public, with valuations near $1 trillion and $60 billion, respectively.
The combined capital raise of over $240 billion from June through year-end would exceed every venture-backed US IPO since 2000, according to PitchBook estimates. This massive influx of capital could lead to a rotation out of equities and into these new listings, potentially causing a bearish trend in the market. Alex Good, founder of crypto AI project Post Fiat, warned that the SpaceX IPO could mark the beginning of a bearish equities market, drawing parallels to the Solana $300 moment.
The mechanical setup of these listings could lead to a concentration of capital in a short period, followed by a rotation out of the market. MSCI modeled a scenario in February that suggested megacap IPOs in 2026 could trigger index-driven flows, sector-rotation effects, and a compression of liquidity in non-megacap assets. As crypto is part of the same risk-on liquidity pool as tech and AI equities, it may be affected by the rotation of capital into these new listings. The historical parallel with Coinbase's listing in April 2021, which marked the peak of the last bitcoin cycle, is a point of concern.
The lesson learned from this experience is that institutional milestones often mark tops rather than starting lines, as the capital that chases the milestone is the same capital that was previously holding up the asset. Two features of the SpaceX listing connect directly to crypto flows: the 30% retail allocation, which is three times the typical retail share, and the company's holding of 8,285 BTC worth roughly $600 million in Coinbase Prime custody. The testable signal going forward is whether crypto holds up through the roadshow window in May and June or begins to drift lower as allocators free up room for the SpaceX subscription. However, a bitcoin rally that extends through the roadshow suggests the spot-ETF bid has decoupled crypto from broader risk-on flows.
The impending SpaceX IPO is a different kind of event, priced into a market that has had five years to learn from the last one, and it remains to be seen whether crypto will treat this lesson as learned or will have to learn it again.