SpaceX is preparing to light up the skies over South Texas on July 16, sending its Starship rocket on its 13th test flight from Starbase. It’s the first launch since the company went public in what became the largest IPO in history, which means every investor with a freshly minted SPCX position is about to learn what it feels like to watch their portfolio ride a controlled explosion into orbit.

The stakes are unusually high. SPCX briefly dipped below its $135 IPO price in mid-July, suggesting that Wall Street’s honeymoon phase lasted about as long as a booster’s first-stage burn. For a company valued at roughly $1.8 trillion, a single test flight shouldn’t move the needle. But Starship isn’t just a rocket. It’s the entire investment thesis.

The IPO that broke records

SpaceX priced its shares at $135 on June 12, 2026, raising an estimated $75 billion to $86 billion in the process. The offering valued the company at approximately $1.77 trillion to $1.8 trillion at launch, with the valuation briefly exceeding $2 trillion shortly after its debut.

Starship’s track record and the V3 gamble

Of the 12 test flights conducted through late May 2026, seven were successful and five were failures. That’s a 58% success rate, which is actually pretty normal for experimental rocket development but looks terrifying on a quarterly earnings slide.

The July 16 flight is particularly significant because it marks the first test of the V3 iteration of Starship. Starship is central to nearly everything SpaceX has promised investors. The vehicle is designed to be fully reusable, which would dramatically reduce launch costs. It’s the backbone of plans to deploy next-generation Starlink satellites at scale.

The Bitcoin angle Wall Street didn’t expect

SpaceX holds over 18,000 BTC in its corporate treasury, making it one of the largest public holders of Bitcoin. SPCX shareholders are, whether they intended to or not, partially exposed to Bitcoin’s price movements. Every quarterly filing from SpaceX will now disclose its BTC position, creating a regular news cycle around corporate crypto adoption at a scale that dwarfs most existing holders.

What this means for investors

The pre-launch dip below $135 suggests that some IPO participants may have been momentum buyers rather than long-term believers. For crypto investors specifically, the key metric to track is whether SpaceX adds to its Bitcoin position in coming quarters. A company with $75 billion-plus in fresh IPO capital and an existing comfort with digital assets could become a significant incremental buyer, and at 18,000 BTC and counting, any additions would send a strong signal about institutional conviction in Bitcoin as a treasury asset.