Crypto exchange Bitget has listed Jio Platforms pre-IPO perpetual futures — apparently the first such product linked to an Indian company — letting traders speculate on the telecom giant's valuation days before its shares begin trading, Business Today reported on October 16, 2026.
How the contract works
The contract settles through Tether's USDT stablecoin, trades 24 hours a day, and offers leverage of up to 20 times. It generated about $1.4 million in turnover in its first 24 hours, according to Bitget data. Unlike dated futures, perpetual futures have no expiry; periodic funding payments between long and short positions keep prices aligned with the underlying.
A new price-discovery layer
The perpetual futures market provides another price-discovery mechanism for Jio before its official listing. Trading activity implied a valuation slightly above the top end of the IPO's ₹1,065–1,119 price band. "Traders of these pre-IPO perpetual futures appear to be enormously informed and successful in pinning the IPO prices of many international IPOs," said Pratik Kala, portfolio manager at Apollo Crypto.
The structure — once used only to speculate on tokens — has expanded to real-world assets including equities, commodities and pre-IPO companies, as crypto platforms chase ever more sophisticated players.
Why it matters for founders
Crypto-to-equity price discovery is no longer a fringe experiment — when India's largest IPO gets a perpetual-futures contract, it tells founders that global liquidity now watches Indian listings around the clock. Public-market readiness, in turn, is becoming part of how serious startups think about their long-term funding story.