When Elon Musk’s SpaceX finally goes public with a record-breaking $75 billion IPO, the ripple effects may hit cryptocurrency investors harder than most expect. Set to debut on Nasdaq this Friday, the rocket and satellite communications company—which recently merged with Musk’s AI startup xAI—is chasing a staggering $1.75 trillion valuation.
I have watched this pattern play out before, though never on this scale. When a genuinely transformative company opens its doors to everyday investors, the gravitational pull on speculative assets is real. And SpaceX has done something unusual for a blockbuster IPO: it has reportedly set aside up to 30 percent of its shares, or $22.5 billion, for retail buyers. That is a rare move. Traditionally, offerings of this size are gobbled up by institutional funds long before individual investors get a turn. By flipping that script, SpaceX is effectively inviting millions of crypto traders to become shareholders overnight.
The timing could hardly be worse for digital assets. Bitcoin is currently trading around $61,852, down roughly 52 percent from its all-time high of $126,223 reached just eight months ago. Just last week, bitcoin tumbled 15 percent in its worst weekly slide since the collapse of FTX in November 2022. Exchange-traded fund outflows have accelerated, and even Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin and historically its most relentless bull, disclosed that it sold some of its holdings for the first time since 2022. If the most faithful believer is trimming exposure, it is worth paying attention.
Spencer Hallarn, global head of over-the-counter trading at crypto firm GSR, put it bluntly: “Crypto is a funding currency for a lot of this. We’ve got to find $75 billion for this IPO, and it’s got to come from somewhere.” That is the uncomfortable math facing the crypto market right now. Retail investors who have treated bitcoin and Ethereum as their primary high-risk, high-reward playground are now eyeing something shinier. And SpaceX is not alone. Hotly anticipated IPOs from OpenAI and Anthropic are expected to follow later this year, each promising their own slice of the artificial intelligence revolution.
What makes SpaceX particularly dangerous for crypto is not just its size but its story. The company’s IPO prospectus reportedly shows that overall it remains unprofitable, and its valuation assumes years of rapid growth driven by its plan to become an AI powerhouse, alongside futuristic ambitions like Mars missions and launching AI data centers in space. In other words, it is exactly the kind of speculative, narrative-driven bet that has traditionally attracted crypto investors. Thomas Puech, CEO of crypto trading firm INDIGO, observed that “a SpaceX IPO would likely pull some capital out of crypto, at least initially. Both compete for the same pool of risk capital,” adding that relative to crypto, AI is “the ‘sexier’ trade at the moment.”
That last point stings for those who have defended crypto through bear markets and regulatory crackdowns. For years, digital assets were the definitive frontier bet. Now artificial intelligence has stolen the spotlight, and the money is following. SpaceX offers a unique bridge between the two: a Musk-led company that touches both space technology and enterprise AI, with a brand that retail investors already trust. Compare that to the confusion many still feel about how to value a decentralized token, and the rotation makes sense.
Still, it would be wrong to blame SpaceX entirely for crypto’s current slump. The sector faces its own unresolved problems. Rising interest rates have made holding non-yielding assets like bitcoin less attractive. Regulatory uncertainty in the United States continues to spook institutional money. And the recent sell-off has exposed how thinly spread retail liquidity really is. David Morrison, senior market analyst at Trade Nation, noted in a research report that bitcoin “really is out of favor with investors,” adding that it “has lost its luster and novelty for many investors. Excitement over the SpaceX IPO isn’t helping either.”
