Are retail traders selling their bitcoin to buy the SpaceX IPO?
Exchange flows and stablecoin movements through this week’s sell-off show no wall of money leaving crypto for cash. Exchanges such as Robinhood and Coinbase will not publicly reporting their figures until July.
What to know:
- SpaceX’s $75 billion IPO, valuing the company at about $1.8 trillion, is unusually directing up to 30% of shares to retail investors via platforms like Robinhood, Fidelity and Charles Schwab.
- Despite online speculation that crypto holders are selling bitcoin to buy into the SpaceX offering, stablecoin flows and on-chain data show no clear signs of abnormal cashing out from crypto markets.
- The most evident source of crypto outflows has been spot bitcoin and ether ETFs, which saw record multi-session redemptions totaling about $4.4 billion before modest inflows resumed.
The roadshow opened Thursday already oversubscribed, with more orders than shares on offer, Bloomberg reported. It is offering shares at a $1.8 trillion valuation.
Bitcoin fell roughly 16% over the same timespan and briefly traded below $60,000 before recovering to around $61,000, according to CoinDesk data.
Stablecoins are the most direct way to track money leaving crypto for dollars. A trader cashing out bitcoin to fund a brokerage account converts into a dollar-pegged token like USDC or tether, then redeems it for cash. That shows up two ways, as stablecoins pulled off exchanges and, later, as a shrinking supply when issuers burn the redeemed tokens.
Neither moved of these readings show anomalies, per data assessed by CoinDesk Outflows for USDC and tether stayed inside the range they’ve held since February, according to CryptoQuant data. The largest single days in recent months were $2.5 billion in USDC on May 22 and $3.6 billion in tether on May 20, both came before the sell-off.
