Bybit will sell you 10x leverage on a private valuation nobody at the company confirmed

Bybit has listed perpetual futures on two private companies, Unitree Robotics and Moonshot AI, under the tickers UNITREEUSDT and MOONSHOTUSDT ^[1]. Neither firm has endorsed the contracts or is affiliated with them ^[2], so the exchange is selling leveraged exposure to a valuation the subject company had no hand in producing and no obligation to correct.

The two additions push Bybit's TradFi perpetuals category past 200 products ^[3], a category the exchange only launched in April 2026 ^[4]. Moonshot's contract went live around August 7, 2026, with up to 10x leverage available ^[5], and Unitree came in the same wave of updates ^[6]. That is roughly four months from launch to a 200-name synthetic multi-asset book spanning equities, ETFs, commodities, indices and now private companies ^[7][8].

The mechanics matter more than the product count. A perpetual is a future with no expiry, and holders pay or receive a funding rate meant to keep the contract price tethered to the value of the underlying asset ^[9]. Tethering requires something to tether to. Crypto Briefing's account is direct on this point: pre-IPO valuations are inherently uncertain because no public market is establishing a consensus price, and by listing these names Bybit is facilitating price discovery for assets that do not yet have one ^[10][11]. The funding rate can only pull the contract toward whatever reference mark the exchange nominates. With no issuer involvement, that mark is not anchored to a primary source, and the publisher notes the absence of any company relationship raises questions about the accuracy of the price feeds and the legitimacy of the price discovery process ^[12].

These are also not tokenized shares. There is no blockchain-native asset changing hands; the contracts are derivatives tracking a perceived valuation, settled entirely in USDT ^[13][14]. A holder of MOONSHOTUSDT owns no claim on Moonshot AI, and there is no share register anywhere that reflects the position.

The two names chosen are the ones with the most narrative pull. Unitree has gained visibility for humanoid robots ^[15], and Moonshot AI, developer of the Kimi assistant, has reportedly seen its valuation triple in recent months on rising revenue ^[16]. Reported valuation moves of that size in a private company are exactly the input that a 10x product amplifies, and the source flags that leverage layered on an opaque private valuation raises the potential for outsized losses, while funding rates can grind down positions during periods of one-sided positioning ^[17][18].

Worth watching: whether Bybit publishes the reference methodology and data sources behind the pre-IPO marks, since the funding mechanism is only as sound as that index; whether Unitree or Moonshot AI moves from silence to objection, given neither has endorsed the products ^[2]; how funding behaves the first time positioning goes heavily one way in a name with no arbitrage path to a spot market; and whether the pre-IPO sleeve keeps growing at the pace that took the wider category past 200 products in about four months ^[3][7].