SpaceX’s $1.77T Nasdaq Debut Has Crypto Bros Wetting Themselves

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Key Highlights

  • SpaceX shares opened at $150 on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, a full $15 above the $135 IPO price, as if the market had decided that blowing rockets into the sky was worth more than producing anything of actual use to the common man.
  • The company raised $75 billion by selling 555.6 million shares, making it the largest IPO on record, and proving once and for all that there is no level of absurdity that Wall Street will not pour money into.
  • SpaceX disclosed 18,712 BTC on its balance sheet, worth nearly $1.2 billion at recent Bitcoin prices, presumably because Mr Musk raided a cryptocurrency convention’s petty cash tin and decided to keep the proceeds.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) made a strong Wall Street debut on Friday, with its shares rising as much as 20% in early trading after the company priced its initial public offering at $135 per share. One might have been forgiven for assuming a firm whose primary pastime hitherto has been occasionally blowing very large rockets up on the launch pad would have had the decency to keep its financial affairs private, but no-Mr Musk, ever the tragedian of self-aggrandisement, has seen fit to float his plaything on the public markets, to the audible gasping of every man in a pinstripe suit within a hundred miles of Lower Manhattan.

The stock opened at $150 on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, a name chosen by a committee of overgrown 12-year-olds, presumably, and later traded near $162, giving public-market investors their first direct exposure to one of the world’s most valuable private companies. This little bump pushed SpaceX’s market value to a rather absurd $1.77 trillion, roughly the GDP of a medium-sized European country, and approximately 400 times what any sane person would pay for a firm that once lost a $200 million rocket mid-flight on live television.

SpaceX Opens Strong After Record $75B IPO

SpaceX sold 555.6 million shares at $135 each, raising $75 billion through the IPO. The company’s roadshow materials, drafted no doubt by a team of overpaid consultants who have never been within 50 feet of a rocket, listed the offering size at 555.6 million shares, with proceeds planned for AI compute infrastructure, launch infrastructure, launch vehicles, satellite expansion, and “general corporate purposes”, a phrase which in this context almost certainly means funding Mr Musk’s next ill-advised Twitter purchase and a fleet of custom-made jets to ferry him between his various mansions.

SpaceX IPO Key Numbers

Metric Details
IPO Price $135 per share (what you pay if you hate having money)
Opening Price $150 (what you pay if you’ve had one too many martinis and trust a man who named his child X Æ A-12)
Early Trading Level Above $160 (what you pay if you’ve already mortgaged your house to bet on rockets)
Shares Sold 555.6 million (enough to give every citizen of Canada a stake, none of whom asked for it)
Capital Raised $75 billion (more than the annual budget of the NHS, spent on rockets and memes)
IPO Valuation Around $1.77 trillion (more than the combined net worth of every aristocrat in Britain, for a firm that once blew up a rocket on the launch pad live on TV)
Ticker SPCX (chosen by a committee of 12-year-olds, presumably)
Exchange Nasdaq, Nasdaq Texas (two venues, because one was not enough for this farce)

The listing marks one of the most closely watched market debuts in recent years because SpaceX is no longer only a rocket company. Its public filings and roadshow materials position the business across space launch, Starlink connectivity (the satellite internet service that charges you $150 a month for broadband that only works when you’re standing on top of a hill under a clear sky), and AI infrastructure, because nothing says “serious, respectable business” like a rocket company suddenly deciding it knows more about artificial intelligence than the people who have been working on it for 30 years.

Why Crypto Investors Are Watching SpaceX

According to the company’s filing, SpaceX held 18,712 BTC as of March 31, 2026, with a cost basis of $661 million and a fair value of $1.293 billion at that date. At Bitcoin’s recent price near $63,500, the same holding is worth just under $1.2 billion, which is roughly the same as the amount Mr Musk probably spends on private jet fuel in a good month. Do not be deceived, however: this does not make SpaceX a Bitcoin proxy. Its BTC position is smaller than the tip jar at a Soho wine bar compared to its trillion-dollar-plus market valuation. Still, the listing gives public investors exposure to another major company with disclosed Bitcoin holdings, alongside its core space, satellite internet, and AI infrastructure businesses, which is exactly the sort of cross-pollination of absurdity that the modern market was crying out for.

Bitcoin itself stayed mostly flat around the debut, trading near $63,300 to $63,800 on Friday. That suggests traders treated the SpaceX IPO mainly as a mega-cap technology and AI event, rather than a direct crypto-market catalyst, which is to say that even the crypto bros have realised that a rocket company’s Bitcoin stash is about as relevant to the price of their funny internet money as a ham sandwich is to the trajectory of a Falcon 9.

Starlink and AI Drive SpaceX Valuation Story

SpaceX generated $18.674 billion in total revenue in 2025, up from $14.015 billion in 2024. Connectivity was the largest contributor, with $11.387 billion in 2025 revenue, while the Space segment generated $4.086 billion and the AI segment generated $3.201 billion. This revenue mix explains why investors are valuing SpaceX beyond launch services: Starlink has become the company’s main growth engine, while AI infrastructure has become a major part of its capital-spending narrative, because nothing makes a valuation look more plausible than slapping the word “AI” on a business plan and pretending you’re not just selling access to a very expensive rocket.

The company’s prospectus also shows that SpaceX does not plan to pay dividends in the foreseeable future, meaning investor returns will depend mainly on future share-price appreciation, or the increasingly unlikely event that the firm finally gets around to colonising Mars and selling plots of red dust to gullible billionaires.

What Comes Next for SPCX

The next test for SPCX will be whether the stock can hold its early gains after the IPO volatility fades. Mega-IPOs often see heavy first-day demand from people who think they’re missing out on the next big thing, but long-term performance depends on boring, unglamorous things like revenue growth, profit margins, debt levels, and not losing half your rocket fleet in a single launch failure.

For crypto investors, the key point is clearer: SpaceX is now a public company with a disclosed Bitcoin position. Its BTC holdings may not drive the stock, but they add another gloriously absurd bridge between public equities, AI infrastructure hype, and corporate Bitcoin treasuries, which is exactly the sort of cross-industry nonsense that will keep financial journalists in copy for the next 12 months, at least.

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2026-06-12 20:59