SpaceX IPO: NC treasurer skips $1.75T valuation, funds AI; BTC hedge
North Carolina State Treasurer Brad Briner said the state’s $200B pension fund will not buy SpaceX shares ahead of the SpaceX IPO. Briner argues the $1.75T valuation is “fully priced,” leaving “little room for future gains,” and therefore does not meet the fund’s target of “high single-digit, predictable returns.”
The SpaceX IPO is expected to raise at least $75B in an all-primary offering, potentially one of the largest listings ever. Briner said he has wrestled with a “pricing issue” for over a year. Instead of adding SpaceX exposure in the private market, the pension fund is redirecting capital toward AI bets, including investments in OpenAI and Anthropic.
SpaceX IPO exposure is not ruled out entirely. Briner indicated the fund may seek standard public index-fund exposure after the SpaceX IPO completes.
Crypto angle: tokenized SpaceX shares reportedly appeared on Bybit and Kraken with subscriptions running June 7–June 11. Separately, North Carolina law passed in 2025 allows up to 5% of the pension fund to be allocated to digital assets, but Briner has taken a conservative stance—allocating about 0.5% to Bitcoin as a volatility hedge.
For traders, the key takeaway is that the SpaceX IPO narrative is receiving cautious treatment from traditional allocators, while crypto use cases (tokenized equities) are expanding—but real balance-sheet demand signals remain limited, with BTC used mainly as a hedge rather than a core holding.
Neutral
This is largely a traditional-finance allocation decision around the SpaceX IPO. The NC pension fund’s refusal is driven by valuation and return-target constraints, not by a change in crypto risk appetite. Crypto traders may see some headline momentum from tokenized SpaceX shares appearing on Bybit and Kraken, but the article also makes clear the pension’s own crypto exposure is small (about 0.5% to BTC), which limits systemic impact.
In the short term, you could get mild volatility around tokenized-equity headlines and any related sentiment in BTC/crypto “real-world assets” narratives. However, there’s no evidence of large incremental buying pressure from major allocators. Over the long term, the key signal is that institutional alt exposures (AI) are being prioritized, while BTC is treated as a hedge rather than a growth bet—similar to prior cycles where institutions allowed “policy room” for crypto but executed conservatively. Net effect: no clear bullish or bearish catalyst for broad market stability.