Cryptocurrency exchange Bitget has listed a pre-IPO perpetual futures contract tied to Jio Platforms, the digital and telecom arm of Reliance Industries, days before the company’s expected initial public offering (IPO) in India.
The contract, JIOUSDT, went live on October 14, 2026. It offers up to 20x leverage, settles in Tether (USDT), a dollar-pegged stablecoin, and trades 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It lets traders bet on Jio’s expected public market value in either direction, but it does not give them ownership of any Jio shares.
What Bitget Has Listed
Bitget announced trading in the JIO pre-market perpetual contract on Wednesday. Perpetual futures are derivative contracts with no expiry date. Instead of settling on a fixed date, they use a periodic payment between buyers and sellers, known as the funding rate, to keep the contract price close to a reference value.
In Bitget’s pre-IPO version, there is no listed share to track, so the price reflects publicly available information and market expectations. Bitget says it will convert such contracts into standard perpetual futures once the underlying company lists and its price stabilizes. The exchange also advises lower leverage on these products to reduce liquidation risk.
Bitget uses an estimated share count of about 9.21 billion for reference and says the figure may be adjusted. That estimate is in line with the 9,20,90,30,830 post-issue equity shares disclosed in Jio’s draft red herring prospectus (DRHP). The share count lets traders compare the contract price with an implied company valuation.
The 20x leverage cap stands out within the category. When Coinbase launched its OpenAI and Anthropic contracts, it capped leverage on pre-IPO products at 5x, a quarter of the maximum Bitget is offering on JIOUSDT.
The JIO ticker on Bitget refers only to this derivative contract. It is not linked to JioCoin, the blockchain-based rewards token Jio has been reported to test on the Polygon network.
Jio Platforms IPO: Valuation, Dates, and Demand
Jio Platforms runs India’s largest mobile network through its subsidiary Reliance Jio Infocomm and offers 5G, broadband, cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) services. The operator ended the March 2026 quarter with 524.4 million subscribers and reached 533.3 million by June 30, 2026.
Jio is targeting a valuation of ₹10.3 lakh crore (~$106 billion), four bankers on the deal told Reuters, with shares reportedly priced between ₹1,065 and ₹1,119 each. At the upper end, the offering would raise about ₹30,200 crore (~$3.1 billion), surpassing Hyundai Motor India’s $2.9 billion issue in 2024 as the country’s largest IPO. Reuters also reported that Jio plans to use up to ₹27,500 crore of the proceeds to repay borrowings of Reliance Jio Infocomm.
The issue is entirely a fresh sale of new shares, with no offer for sale (OFS) by existing holders. None of Jio’s existing investors, including Meta Platforms, Alphabet, Mubadala and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, is seeking to sell shares in the IPO.
The current target is well below earlier expectations. In November 2025, bankers proposed a valuation as high as $170 billion, with proposals ranging from $130 billion upward.
Jio was expected to file its red herring prospectus (RHP) on October 14, with the price band likely to be announced on October 15, according to market sources cited by Business Today. The RHP is the final offer document filed with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the country’s markets regulator. The same report said Jio’s grey market premium (GMP), an unofficial indicator of expected listing gains, stood at ₹210 to ₹220 per share.
People familiar with the matter have indicated that the anchor book may open on October 19, public subscription may run from October 21 to October 23, and listing is targeted for October 28 on the BSE (formerly the Bombay Stock Exchange) and the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE). The company has not officially confirmed these dates.
Demand appears strong. Jio has drawn more than $20 billion in bids, Bloomberg reported, with Fidelity, Allianz, and Capital Group among the investors that have indicated interest.
Pre-IPO Perpetuals Expand Beyond US Tech Names
Pre-IPO perpetual futures have grown quickly in 2026. Bitget launched the category in May with a SpaceX contract, and Binance listed its first pre-IPO perpetual, also tied to SpaceX, on May 21. Coinbase followed with its own SpaceX pre-IPO contract on its international exchange.
On the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, similar markets run under HIP-3 (Hyperliquid Improvement Proposal 3), a framework that lets third-party builders deploy their own perpetual markets. Hyperliquid’s SpaceX-linked contracts held about $170 million in open interest weeks after the company’s Nasdaq listing.
Trading volume has risen sharply. Pre-IPO perpetual volume on crypto exchanges grew from $2 million in March to $715 million in May and about $12 billion in June, according to CryptoQuant data. Binance accounted for $10.3 billion, or 83% of the June total, while Bitget ranked second with $1.3 billion.
The structure is also reaching regulated products. 21Shares recently listed an Anthropic pre-IPO exchange-traded product (ETP) whose reference price comes from Binance perpetual futures. JIOUSDT extends the category from mostly US technology companies to one of India’s largest corporate groups.
What It Means for Indian Traders
Retail investors in India normally apply for IPOs through a broker or bank, and in heavily subscribed issues there is no guarantee of an allotment. Reliance Industries shareholders holding at least one share as of October 14 are expected to qualify for a separate shareholder quota, according to Business Today.
JIOUSDT removes the allotment step but adds other costs and risks. Traders pay or receive funding fees, and leveraged positions can be closed automatically, or liquidated, if losses exceed the margin posted. Holders receive no equity, voting rights or dividends. Access also depends on exchange jurisdiction rules and know your customer (KYC) identity checks.
Key Risks
Pre-IPO contracts can move sharply if an offering is delayed, repriced or cancelled. At 20x leverage, a 5% move against a position can wipe out the margin posted. Outside Indian market hours, and before listing, prices rely on market activity and model-based references rather than trades in actual shares.
Whether these markets offer reliable price signals is still debated. Some analysts have questioned whether crypto markets are pricing Anthropic’s potential valuation sensibly, and a funding mechanism does not guarantee that a contract will predict the eventual listing price.
For Jio, the next markers are the RHP filing, the official price band, the anchor allocation, and subscription data. How closely JIOUSDT tracks the grey market premium and the October 28 listing price will show whether the contract adds meaningful price discovery or simply offers leveraged exposure to the event.
Also Read: 21Shares Launches Anthropic Pre-IPO ETP Tied to Binance Perps
