A New Concept of Pre-IPO Perpetuals Exposure

In recent times, the crypto market seems to lack narratives to enter the “bullish phase.” With some highlights between adding the traditional finance market to crypto protocol, Ventuals is gaining more and more attention from the market.

What is Ventuals Protocol?

Ventuals is a DeFi platform that allows users to trade perpetual futures contracts based on the valuation of private, pre-IPO companies. In other words, it lets users bet on the valuation of well-known startups like OpenAI, SpaceX, or Anthropic even before these companies go public.

The project’s goal is to make private capital markets, which were previously limited to professional investors, accessible to a global audience. This creates a completely new type of asset in DeFi. As the team wrote on X, Ventuals “turns private company valuations into tradable perp markets. What was once limited to insiders is now open to anyone to trade.”

Ventuals is built on Hyperliquid, a decentralized trading infrastructure with very low latency and the ability to process 100,000 orders per second. This addresses one of the biggest issues in DeFi derivatives: thin liquidity and slow execution speeds. The unique aspect of Ventuals is that it “opens” the private equity market, which was previously only for venture capital funds or institutions, to retail investors worldwide.

For more: What Is an IPO? Understanding Public Listings in TradFi and Crypto

Infrastructure of Hyperliquid and HIP-3

Ventuals uses HyperliquidX as its base infrastructure. Hyperliquid is known as one of the fastest and most reliable decentralized derivatives platforms, comparable to centralized exchanges such as Binance Futures.

Hyperliquid can process up to 100,000 orders per second, ensuring very fast execution and minimal latency. On top of this, Ventuals applies the HIP-3 standard, which enables the creation of unlimited futures markets for new types of assets. HIP-3 makes it possible to build custom futures contracts and expand beyond crypto assets like BTC and ETH to include startup valuation indices while still maintaining the same level of security and efficiency as traditional markets.

For more: Hyperliquid Deep Dive: Understand HYPE and HLP Model

This means Ventuals is not simply copying centralized futures into DeFi but is instead creating a new asset type: futures tied to private company valuations. The design is able to handle complex financial products that traditional exchanges often avoid. After just 24 hours of launching its VLP Vault, Ventuals recorded a TVL of 10.36 million USD with an APR of 10.91%.

From another technical aspect to consider, Ventuals uses an optimistic oracle to bring the off-chain data onto the blockchain transparently. The data, such as startup valuations, will include the project fundraising rounds, the secondary market valuations, or any other metrics related to the protocol. All of this kind of information will be on-chain, making the futures contracts public and verifiable, reducing the opaque part in the exposure with data.

With this model, Ventuals turns hard-to-access startups into liquid, tradable assets. This is a major step forward in democratizing private markets. Data also shows that within just two weeks of launching its testnet, Ventuals recorded encouraging numbers.

For more: Hyperliquid vs. dYdX, Aevo, GMX: Into the Future of Derivatives

Ventuals Testnet, VLP Vault, and Airdrop Potentials

Ventuals is currently live on testnet, giving users the chance to try the platform without real capital. By registering, users receive 500 testnet USDC to experiment with long and short trades on startup valuation contracts. This also builds potential eligibility for a future airdrop when the mainnet and token launch, though no official confirmation has been made yet.

In addition to trading, Ventuals has introduced the VLP (Ventuals Liquidity Provider) Vault. This allows users to provide liquidity under the HIP-3 standard on HyperBeat. The Vault increases liquidity for futures contracts, offers passive income for LPs, and will likely be an important factor for token rewards in a future airdrop.

Ventuals Community Growth and Social Signals

Just a few weeks after launching the testnet, the Ventuals protocol has quickly attracted attention from the crypto community. The project also keeps constantly launching new features after attracting users. The newly launched one is the Ventuals Startup Dashboard, which provides structured data about private AI companies before they IPO.

Organized by category, you can see important company metrics like:

– Last round valuations
– Total capital raised
– Monthly active users
– Reported annualized revenue
– Usage market share

With links to sources for each piece of information. pic.twitter.com/1f2RUdJvpw

— Ventuals (@ventuals_) July 10, 2025

The dashboard includes a wide range of information, such as last round valuations, total capital raised for projects, monthly active users, reported annualized revenue, interest over time, usage market share, and the fundraising round breakdown. All the information comes with links to sources.

According to RootData X, in the past week Ventuals was the project that gained the most new followers from top influencers on X, surpassing many names in DeFi and GameFi. Well-known figures such as Gmoney, WSBMod, and Mr. Block have followed and mentioned the project.

How to Use Ventuals Protocol (Testnet 2025)

Set up your wallet and Connect

First, you’ll need a Web3 wallet such as Metamask, Rabby, or any EVM-compatible wallet.

• Go to the official testnet site: testnet.ventuals.com.
• Click Connect Wallet.
• Once connected, you’ll receive 500 testnet USDC for free to try out the platform.

Trading pre-IPO Perpetual Futures

Ventuals lets you go long or short on the valuations of high-profile startups like OpenAI, SpaceX, or Anthropic.

• Open the Trade tab on the upper left.
• Pick the company you want to trade.
• Enter the amount of USDC (testnet) you want to use.
• Select Long (Buy) if you expect the valuation to go up, or Short (Sell) if you expect it to drop.
• Choose leverage (up to 10x).
• Confirm the transaction in your wallet.

After opening a position, you’ll see it in your personal dashboard with details like PnL, margin, and liquidation price.

Others

You can also provide liquidity and earn passive yield on VLP Vault.

• Go to the VLP Vault section.
• Click Deposit and enter how much USDC (testnet) you want to add.
• Confirm in your wallet.

Ventuals also built a Startup Dashboard to track private AI companies before they IPO.

Finally, by using the testnet, you can:

• Trade long/short positions.
• Provide liquidity to the VLP Vault.
• Interact with the dashboard and give feedback to the team.

May these types of interaction help you qualify for an airdrop when the token launches. There’s no official confirmation yet, but the community expects early users to be rewarded.

Conclusion

However, the real test will come with the transition from testnet to mainnet. In practice, some information about the startup valuation data is often delayed and not fully transparent. But that is where the Ventuals’ oracle system must prove that it can deliver accurate and manipulation-resistant pricing. On top of this, during the high attention of legal institutions, there are regulatory challenges. The futures trading based on pre-IPO assets could fall into complicated legal categories in different jurisdictions if Ventuals wants to scale globally.