SpaceX didn’t just go public. It went supernova.

The Elon Musk-led aerospace giant debuted on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX on June 12, listing at roughly $135 per share before ripping nearly 60% higher to surpass $215 during intraday trading. That move briefly pushed SpaceX’s market capitalization beyond $2.7 trillion, making it one of the most explosive IPO debuts in history. And now, a wave of newly launched leveraged ETFs is channeling that euphoria into amplified bets that are attracting enormous capital.

Leveraged ETFs and the wall of money

Within hours of SPCX hitting the tape, leveraged exchange-traded funds designed to offer 2x daily exposure to the stock began trading. One of those products, from the Defiance family of ETFs, saw nearly 1 million shares change hands on its very first day. The number of ETF holders for SPCX shares jumped from 4 to 40 on the first trading day alone. Among the new holders: BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with over $10 trillion in assets under management.

Here’s the thing about leveraged ETFs. They’re designed for short-term traders, not long-term holders. A 2x daily fund resets every day, meaning returns compound in ways that can diverge wildly from the underlying stock over weeks or months. In English: if SPCX goes up 10% one day and down 10% the next, a 2x leveraged fund doesn’t break even. It loses money.

SpaceX’s Bitcoin stash sends ripples through crypto

The IPO filing revealed something that caught crypto markets off guard. SpaceX disclosed holdings of 18,712 BTC, acquired for approximately $661 million. By the IPO date, those holdings carried a fair value of roughly $1.45 billion. That’s a paper gain of more than 100% on Bitcoin alone.

The disclosure had immediate downstream effects. Perpetual trading volume on Hyperliquid, the decentralized derivatives exchange, surged to approximately $1.4 billion as traders piled into speculative positions. The HYPE token, Hyperliquid’s native asset, hit an all-time high during the frenzy. Inflows into HYPE-linked ETF products exceeded $178 million, suggesting that the SpaceX IPO didn’t just lift space-themed equities. It sent a jolt through the entire risk asset spectrum.

What this means for investors

For equity investors, the leveraged ETF activity around SPCX is a clear signal of where speculative appetite is concentrated. If SPCX pulls back 20% from its highs, 2x leveraged holders are looking at a 40% drawdown in a single session.

For crypto-native investors, the question is whether Hyperliquid can sustain the volume spike or whether the IPO-day surge was a one-time event driven by novelty rather than structural demand.