Hyperliquid pre-market contracts price CXMT at $7.2, foreign capital enters China storage narrative via DeFi

Author: Claude, TechFlow

TechFlow Editor's Note: ChangXin Memory Technologies' STAR Market IPO is priced at 8.66 yuan/share, raising 57.9 billion yuan, with subscription on July 16. On the eve of subscription, Trade.xyz deployed a CXMT perpetual contract on Hyperliquid, currently trading at 7.2 USDC (approx. 52 yuan RMB/share), 24-hour turnover 1.32 million USD, open interest 2.41 million USD, implied market cap approx. 3.5 trillion yuan, falling at the upper end of institutional expectations of 2-3 trillion. This is the first time an on-chain pre-market contract targets an A-share STAR Market IPO, and also the most direct entry point for overseas investors to engage in the "China Storage Substitution" narrative.

CXMT has not yet rung the bell at the Shanghai Stock Exchange, but price discovery in the crypto market has already begun.

According to Bloomberg on July 15, Trade.xyz deployed a ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) perpetual contract on the Hyperliquid blockchain, contract code xyz:CXMTUSD. As of press time, the contract's 24-hour turnover is approx. 1.32 million USD, open interest approx. 2.41 million USD, funding rate 0.0014%. The price rose from an initial mark price of approx. 6 USD to 7.2 USD, a 24-hour increase of 20%.

This is not the first time Hyperliquid has provided pre-market pricing for an IPO. In May this year, before AI chip company Cerebras went public, the Hyperliquid pre-market contract differed from the Nasdaq opening price by only 1.3%; on the day of the SpaceX IPO in June, the on-chain contract had a single-day turnover of 1.38 billion USD. But targeting an A-share STAR Market asset, this is the first time.

7.2 USD Equals Approx. 52 Yuan RMB/Share, Implied Market Cap Approx. 3.5 Trillion

The contract tracks the price per share denominated in USDC, adopting the same logic as the SpaceX and Cerebras pre-market contracts.

Converted at the current exchange rate, 7.2 USD equals approx. 52 yuan RMB/share, multiplied by the total share capital after issuance of 66.88 billion shares, the implied total market cap is approx. 3.5 trillion yuan, equivalent to approx. 6 times the IPO issuance market cap of 579.2 billion yuan.

This pricing falls within the slightly optimistic range expected by sell-side institutions. 21st Century Business Herald cited investment bankers saying CXMT is expected to be valued at 2 trillion to 2.5 trillion yuan after listing; Caijing magazine, combining calculations from multiple institutions, gives 3 trillion to 4 trillion yuan or more in an optimistic scenario. Hyperliquid's pre-market 3.5 trillion pricing sits between the upper end of neutral and the lower end of optimistic.

Another way to read this: if these on-chain traders' judgments are accurate, CXMT's stock price might open around 50 yuan RMB on the first day of listing, approx. 6 times the 8.66 yuan issuance price. In the first half of this year, the average first-day gain for new A-share STAR Market stocks was 489%, so a 6x opening is not outrageous.

Less than 24 hours after the contract went live, a turnover of 1.32 million USD and open interest of 2.41 million USD have formed initial liquidity for the on-chain market, but there is still an order of magnitude gap compared to SpaceX's single-day turnover of 1.38 billion USD on its listing day. This price reflects the directional judgment of early participants, not institutional-level pricing.

A-Shares Cannot Be Sold on the Same Day or Shorted: Perpetual Contracts Naturally Fill the Gap

Why would crypto traders pay attention to a Chinese A-share? The views of some investors on overseas social media platforms might explain the issue. The institutional restrictions of A-shares are precisely the opportunity for perpetual contracts.

A-shares have two structural limitations. T+1 settlement means shares bought on the day cannot be sold, and STAR Market individual stocks cannot be shorted via securities lending. For an asset like CXMT that may see huge volatility on the first day of listing, A-share holders face an awkward situation: even if they earn floating profits from the limit-up, they cannot lock in profits on the same day, and the risk of a high open and low close the next day is fully exposed.

Perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid do not have these restrictions. 24/7 trading, two-way long/short, adjustable leverage. Theoretically, investors holding CXMT A-share positions can open short positions on Hyperliquid to hedge overnight risk.

However, the lack of arbitrage paths is an issue that needs to be faced squarely. Cerebras and SpaceX listed on Nasdaq, allowing global investors to freely arbitrage between the underlying stock and the contract, causing prices to converge quickly. CXMT listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market, where the 500,000 yuan asset threshold and QFII quota restrictions prevent the vast majority of overseas retail investors from directly buying the underlying stock.

A price spread may exist between the contract price and the actual A-share trading price for a long time, and investors need to price this extra risk.

Foreign Capital Cannot Buy A-Shares, DeFi Becomes the Entry Point for the "China Storage Substitution" Concept

Blockchain.News directly pointed out in its report: the CXMT contract provides a channel for overseas traders to bypass the STAR Market 500,000 yuan threshold.

This demand is not manufactured out of thin air. CXMT is the world's fourth-largest DRAM supplier, with a global market share of 7.7% in the first quarter; SemiAnalysis expects it may surpass Micron to rank third globally by the end of the year. Apple has begun testing CXMT's DRAM chips for devices in the Chinese market (according to the UK "Financial Times" on July 8). Net profit attributable to the parent company for the first half of 2026 is expected to be 50 billion to 57 billion yuan, with a profit margin of approx. 70%, on the same order of magnitude as SK Hynix's 73% and Samsung's 81%.

When such a company lists, investors in the global storage industry are watching, but the vast majority cannot buy in. Crypto research institution Citrini has repeatedly recommended Hyperliquid's perpetual contract scenario in paid research reports while being bullish on CXMT.

In the situation where foreign capital cannot directly participate in A-shares, Hyperliquid contracts may become the most convenient channel for them to engage in the "China Storage Substitution" concept.

From a bigger picture perspective, this is the first time DeFi infrastructure has been used to create a parallel pricing market for Chinese STAR Market assets. Hyperliquid's HIP-3 framework allows any entity staking 500,000 HYPE tokens (approx. 28 million USD) to deploy perpetual contracts; Trade.xyz has utilized this mechanism to launch pre-market contracts for companies such as SpaceX, Cerebras, OpenAI, Anthropic, etc., cumulatively generating over 1.46 billion USD in trading volume. After TradingView integrated Hyperliquid and Trade.xyz data sources on July 2, the price trends of on-chain perpetual contracts have entered mainstream market terminals.

It is worth mentioning that the Hyperliquid Policy Center and TradeXYZ recently met with the SEC's Crypto Task Force to discuss crypto regulatory issues. From the current regulatory trajectory, US regulation is the platform's main compliance focus, and the Chinese regulatory risks brought by A-share assets are temporarily not within its consideration.

(Note: Hyperliquid is not open to Chinese users.)

57.9 Billion Fundraising, First Half Net Profit 66 Billion: CXMT Itself is an Event of the Year

Returning to the A-share context, even without Hyperliquid's contract, CXMT's listing itself is already a landmark event in China's capital market in 2026.

Issuance price 8.66 yuan/share, calculated based on an initial issuance of 6.688 billion shares, expected fundraising 57.9 billion yuan, close to twice the original plan of 29.5 billion yuan. If the over-allotment option is fully exercised, the fundraising amount will reach 66.6 billion yuan, becoming the largest IPO in Asia this year and the largest semiconductor IPO in A-share history. Issuance P/E ratio 308.92 times, far exceeding the industry average of 76.32 times, but the market is not worried, because the first quarter net profit of 33 billion yuan is quickly digesting the valuation. The company expects revenue of 110 billion to 120 billion yuan in the first half of 2026, net profit attributable to the parent company of 50 billion to 57 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of over 2244%.

More critical is the timing. The global DRAM market is in a rare super boom cycle. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron have shifted a large amount of capacity to HBM high-bandwidth memory required for AI servers, leading to a shortage of consumer-grade DRAM supply; first quarter DRAM contract prices surged 90% to 95% quarter-on-quarter, creating the largest single-quarter increase in history. CXMT focuses on consumer-grade DDR5 and LPDDR5X products, with a monthly capacity of 200,000 to 300,000 wafers, and is one of the few manufacturers globally expanding consumer-grade DRAM capacity against the trend, taking up the capacity gap strategically left by the three major giants.

On the A-share IPO subscription side, all 71 new stocks listed in the first half of this year rose on the first day, with an average first-day gain of 489% for STAR Market new stocks. Retail investors can participate in online subscription on July 16, subscription code 787825, expected listing on July 27.

For A-share investors, the July 16 subscription is the front door. For overseas investors, Hyperliquid's CXMT contract has opened a side door. After the official listing on July 27, whether the contract price can converge to the actual trading price as quickly as Cerebras will be a key test to examine whether this model can be replicated to A-shares. But even if the price does not converge, the existence of this parallel market itself has shown that global capital's interest in the China Storage Substitution narrative is not just talk.