Aster and Bybit Launch Pre-IPO Perpetual Contracts for Oura Health

Decentralized exchange Aster has launched a perpetual futures contract linked to Oura Health’s anticipated IPO, enabling crypto traders to speculate on the Finnish smart ring maker’s market debut with up to 20x leverage. The OURA/USD1 Pre-IPO Perpetual became available on September 23, shortly after Oura initiated its IPO roadshow. The company aims for a Nasdaq listing under the ticker 'OURA,' targeting to offer 50 million shares priced between $40 and $44, which could raise around $2.2 billion and value the company at approximately $14.1 billion to $15.6 billion.

The contract offered by Aster is a synthetic perpetual future, meaning it tracks the market-implied price per share of Oura without granting actual equity ownership. Traders are speculating on the stock's future performance, with all settlements occurring in USD1, a stablecoin developed by World Liberty Financial. Aster has been expanding its offerings of products that utilize USD1 for settlement, including pre-IPO perpetuals for other companies like SpaceX and OpenAI.

In a parallel move, Bybit has also launched a pre-IPO perpetual contract for Oura, designated OURAUSDT, which began trading on September 22 with leverage of up to 25x. This contract allows traders to gain synthetic exposure to Oura's implied valuation without receiving shares or IPO allocations. Both exchanges are providing a new avenue for price discovery in private company valuations, which have traditionally been inaccessible to ordinary traders before a public listing.

As the IPO roadshow continues, the trading price of these perpetual contracts will reflect real-time market sentiment. If the prices remain above the proposed IPO range, it indicates bullish sentiment among crypto traders, while lower prices may suggest the opposite. However, the regulatory implications of synthetic pre-IPO instruments on decentralized exchanges remain a concern, as they permit speculative trading on unregistered securities.