Hyperliquid SpaceX Pre-IPO Contract Drops 45%, 405 Retail Traders Liquidated for $1.5M in Losses

ME News reports that on May 29 (UTC+8), Hyperliquid’s SPACEX-USDH perpetual contract experienced a sharp flash crash, with the price plunging from $2,277 to a low of $1,254 within 30 minutes—a drop of nearly 45%—before partially recovering to around $2,169. The crash triggered the liquidation of 1,393 positions across 405 users, resulting in total liquidated losses of $1.51 million. Data shows that the contract’s total trading volume over the past 24 hours was only approximately $4.87 million, with open interest under $2.9 million, indicating extremely low market depth. A single large sell order nearly instantly depleted liquidity, sparking a cascading sell-off. The affected users were predominantly retail traders, with a median margin of just $31 and widespread use of approximately 3x leverage. The SPACEX-USDH contract, launched by Hyperliquid, allows users to speculate on changes in SpaceX’s market valuation prior to its IPO; however, it does not represent actual shares or confer any shareholder rights. Since SpaceX has not yet gone public, the contract lacks a publicly available spot price anchor. Unlike perpetual contracts for assets such as BTC or ETH, which are supported by deep spot markets, SPACEX-USDH’s price relies primarily on limited private secondary market valuations, making it significantly more susceptible to extreme volatility. Reports indicate that SpaceX aims to launch its IPO in June this year. (Source: BlockBeats)