Binance Futures rolled out a dense batch of new TradFi perpetual products from Aug. 17 to Aug. 19, adding names such as Gold Miners ETF, Cloudflare, Shopify, and two stocks that have drawn heavy attention lately: CXMT and UNITREE.
Access through traditional markets is limited
The article says investors trying to join these offerings through the conventional stock market face clear entry requirements first. On China’s STAR Market, individual investors typically need RMB 500,000 in assets and two years of trading experience.
Meeting those thresholds is only the first hurdle. The article notes that UNITREE has a relatively small float and carries the label of the “first humanoid robot stock,” with several brokerages estimating its subscription win rate at just 0.02% to 0.03%. That is well below CXMT’s estimated allocation rate of about 0.47%. Put differently, even an investor who meets the asset and experience requirements would likely need to enter the draw thousands of times to land one UNITREE allocation.
For ordinary overseas investors, the path is narrower still. China’s A-share market mainly connects foreign capital through QFII, RQFII, and the Shanghai-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect programs, leaving it difficult for retail individuals to participate directly in IPO subscriptions.
On-chain markets offer another way to take a view
The article argues that blockchain-based markets provide a different route outside the IPO lottery system. No RMB 500,000 threshold. No two-year trading history requirement. No need to win an allocation. With a wallet and stablecoins, traders can take a view on the prices of the two stocks before listing access opens through traditional channels.
In mid-July, Trade.xyz launched a premarket contract for CXMT through Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 framework. Its initial reference price was $5, and it later rose to $8.64. In early August, UNITREE’s premarket contract moved from $70 to $93.99. The article presents those figures as evidence that a group of traders who would otherwise struggle to take part in early pricing for popular Chinese IPO candidates have found a place to express that view on-chain.
Different tools before and after listing
According to the article, Web3 is starting to assemble a system that supplies two kinds of trading functions at different stages, functions that already exist in traditional markets but are usually separated and restricted by participant type.
Before listing, conventional finance does have Pre-IPO investing, but access usually goes to VC firms, PE funds, and industrial capital. Retail investors rarely get in directly. Hyperliquid’s premarket contracts work differently. They do not sell equity stakes, and they do not represent a right to receive shares later. Instead, they create a tradable market around expectations for a company’s future valuation.
Seen that way, the move in the CXMT premarket contract from $5 to $8.64 and the move in the UNITREE contract from $70 to $93.99 reflect expectations for how the market may value the two companies after listing.
After listing, perpetual contracts on exchanges such as Binance add another layer of trading utility by giving the market a broader way to express already-formed prices.
The article breaks the role of these on-chain products into two functions:
- Before listing, they let more traders participate in price discovery.
- After listing, they give more traders access to leveraged exposure.
They do not change issuance rules or confer ownership
The article stresses that on-chain markets are not rewriting stock issuance rules. They also do not provide ownership of the shares themselves. What they do is separate price volatility from the stock market structure that normally contains it and turn that volatility into a standalone financial product that can be traded independently.
Traditional capital markets are designed to screen participants through account qualifications, capital requirements, and regulatory procedures. That structure helps preserve market order, but it also means many opportunities stay concentrated among a smaller pool of eligible participants.
On-chain derivatives, in the article’s framing, follow a different line of thinking. From stock carry products to stock perpetuals and then pre-IPO premarket contracts, the core logic is the same: when a type of asset or trading opportunity in traditional finance carries a high barrier to entry, on-chain markets try to reopen part of that financial function through a new product format.
Exposure is not the same as owning the stock
The article closes with an example. An investor who wins one UNITREE allocation could make RMB 470,000, but only after getting through a lottery with a 0.02% to 0.03% estimated hit rate. On-chain, by contrast, anyone holding USDT or USDC can obtain similar exposure without queueing for an allocation and without waiting for the draw.
The original article also includes a disclaimer saying the content is for reference only, does not constitute investment advice, and that markets carry risk.
