Gate.com, TradeXYZ List CXMT Perpetuals for Offshore China Access

Access restrictions create the demand. Foreign investors can buy mainland shares through Stock Connect or the QFII program. Both have quotas and eligible-name lists. Perpetual futures bypass those gates entirely. The same structure has been used to offer synthetic exposure to SpaceX and OpenAI, assets that are otherwise hard to reach.

Pre-IPO perpetuals embed the market's expectation of where the stock will list. If the stock opens above that implied level, holders can profit. Iggy Iope, chief investment officer at tokenized real-asset firm Theo, said the structure assumes the derivative will converge toward the underlying once spot trading begins. Data feeds link the contract price to the public market after listing.

Because these contracts do not expire, they can track price movements even after the stock lists. Russ, head of trading at crypto market maker Auros, argued that pre-IPO perpetuals can serve as a hedging tool for insiders holding equity stakes. He pointed to similar patterns in SpaceX-linked products as evidence the structure extends beyond pre-IPO stocks. Broad swaths of U.S. and Hong Kong equities could eventually trade in crypto market form, he said.

Regulators face a classification problem. Are stock-linked perpetuals securities or derivatives? Andy Liu, a senior analyst at HTX Research, argued they look less like equity ownership and more like leveraged bets on price outcomes. The question determines which set of compliance rules applies.

Enforcement is difficult when products cross borders. The Monetary Authority of Singapore placed Hyperliquid, a major venue for CXMT-linked perpetuals, on its investor alert list in July. The list flags entities that may be mistaken as regulated. Whether individual governments can effectively curb such instruments remains an "open question," Auros' Russ said.