The CXMT logo appears on the screen of a smartphone placed on a reflective surface with the Chinese flag projected on it on July 17, 2026 in Creteil, France. China’s DRAM memory chip giant Changxin Memory Technology’s initial public offering (IPO) attracted attention on Shanghai’s STAR market, raising nearly $8.6 billion.
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Cryptocurrency traders have set the stock price of Changxin Memory Technology, China’s largest memory chip maker, at a level that would make it the most valuable mainland-listed company, days ahead of its record debut in Shanghai.
Crypto startup Trade.xyz is offering CXMT-linked contracts on decentralized derivatives exchange Hyperliquid, allowing investors to speculate on the chipmaker’s valuation ahead of its official debut.
Perpetual futures tracker CXMT traded near $6.35 per share on HyperLiquid on Thursday, after recently hitting a high of $8.60, days ahead of the semiconductor maker’s blockbuster listing in Shanghai next Monday. CXMT did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the valuation.
The current price implies a market capitalization of about $425 billion, or about 2.9 trillion yuan. This is worth more than the market capitalization. Industrial and Commercial Bank of Chinathe largest listed company in mainland China with a value of approximately 2.56 trillion yuan.
The offering price was initially set at 8.66 yuan ($1.28) per share, valuing the company at just 579 billion yuan at the time of listing, yet making it the largest IPO in the history of the tech-oriented STAR market.
Hyperliquid’s perpetual contracts are derivatives that allow traders to speculate on various assets such as cryptocurrencies, commodities, and stocks without holding the underlying assets.
The huge premium was fueled in part by offshore investors who were locked out of one of the world’s most anticipated listings and turned to crypto rails to build a parallel market for the Chinese chipmaker. The Shanghai debut is virtually outside the door for foreigners, and even mainland retail investors face a high barrier to entry into the STAR market, which requires an account balance of 500,000 yuan and two years of trading experience.
Analysts say the premium reflects a lack of access as well as confidence in the underlying business.
“These markets aren’t valuing the company, they’re predicting where the stock price will open,” said Eric Chen, co-founder and CEO of Web3 financial firm Injective Labs.
Given the typical pricing of Chinese IPOs and the thin initial float, expectations for a strong debut are reasonable, he said. But he said the price reflects the most optimistic participants, as most global investors have no access to the underlying stock and there are few liquid places to short the stock.
“Part of the premium is prediction,” Chen said. “Part of that is just what the world pays for exposure that it doesn’t get directly in the stock market.”
The world’s fourth-largest DRAM memory chip maker’s listing also comes amid a historic memory upcycle, with AI-driven demand and global supply shortages driving up prices across the industry. The company plans to raise up to $8.6 billion in what will be Asia’s biggest IPO this year.
“Gauge of demand”
Crypto-native platforms are increasingly serving as unofficial price discovery for assets that investors don’t have access to otherwise (pre-IPO names, restricted markets, after-hours trading), and some initial contracts closely track the final opening price, Chen said. “If that channel is limited, it should be interpreted as a measure of demand rather than a precise pricing event.”
The record so far has been mixed. Tanai Bedo, a senior researcher at digital asset data firm Coin Metrics, said in a report last month that HyperLiquid’s pre-IPO perpetual trading has created a “comprehensive 24/7 derivatives market” for private tech companies. Ved said the company’s Cerebra Systems contract settled within about 1.3% of the company’s stock’s opening price on the Nasdaq.
the space x After peaking above $220 in May, the contract traded around 20% above the $135 fixed asking price ahead of its June debut, still far from the CXMT premium.
“What we see from the funding and open interest is that this is still a small, sentiment-driven market. There are enthusiastic longs on one side and a small group looking for convergence on the other,” Chen said. “At this size, I think the headline valuation is being set by a very modest amount of capital.”
This craze has brought new attention to Hyperliquid itself. The Monetary Authority of Singapore added the platform to its investor alert list in June, publicly informing citizens that the entity is neither licensed nor authorized in the city-state. HyperLiquid said the listing was not a prohibition or enforcement action and that it had never claimed to be regulated by MAS.
Additionally, Multicoin Capital co-founder and Forward Industries chairman Kyle Samani said that “Hyperliquid is not permissionless” as it claims on its website, accusing the platform of misrepresenting its architecture given its closed source code and centralized set of validators.
Hyper Liquid did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Once CXMT goes public, contracts will be re-locked to the trading price and such gaps tend to close suddenly rather than gradually, Chen said. If the open falls below fill, the price will be reset immediately. Meanwhile, strong onshore demand could push prices higher further, he added.
“The more interesting question is what will be left after that? A 24/7 market for stocks that only trade on Shanghai hours,” Chen said. “Persistent gaps reflect the access barriers themselves, not the companies.”
