Authors: Block Analytics Ltd, Merkle 3s Capital

An IPO that was overdrawn six months in advance

On June 12, SpaceX will debut on Nasdaq with a valuation of $1.75 trillion, becoming the largest IPO in human capital market history. This figure surpasses Walmart, JPMorgan, and all traditional energy giants combined. A space company that is still losing money has a valuation that outperforms most of the S&P 500.

But what truly supports this $1.75 trillion isn't the Starship rocket repeatedly exploding in Texas, but rather the more than 8,000 small white satellites called Starlink overhead . Rockets are merely the entry ticket; satellite internet is the cash cow. This contrast, which took the market a quarter to gradually digest after SpaceX submitted its prospectus, is a stark contrast.

What's even more worthy of our attention are the related concept stocks. Since the prospectus was leaked on March 25th, TSLA has risen by 10%, RKLB by 88%, FLY by 70%, QCOM by 56%, and DXYZ by 79%—a frenzy of investment surrounding SpaceX has already run its course. Are the retail investors entering the market now joining the fray to buy in, or are they simply taking over the losses? Let's break down each company one by one to find out .

Three Faces in the Prospectus

SpaceX has divided its business into three parts: Space (launch and Starship), Connectivity (Starlink), and AI (data centers and computing power). It sounds balanced, but financially it's a machine with a serious imbalance.

Starlink is a true cash cow. As of Q1 2026, it had over 10.3 million paying users, contributing 61% of the group's quarterly revenue, with an EBITDA margin as high as 63%. This is a figure higher than most SaaS companies. In the satellite internet business, once the scale effect crosses a critical point, the marginal cost is almost zero—SpaceX has already crossed that threshold.

The ARPU trend is the most noteworthy aspect of this story. In 2023, Starlink's average monthly fee was in the range of $110-$130. In 2024, as the market in developing countries expanded, it dropped to $90-$100. By the second half of 2025, due to the dilution from the Direct to Cell introductory plan and enterprise-level long-tail users, it had fallen to the range of $75-$85. The number of users doubled, but the revenue per user halved, which is a typical story of "compensating for price with volume" .

The advantage is that TAM (Total Average Revenue) is opening up – low ARPU markets like India, Southeast Asia, and Africa weren't originally part of Starlink's early business model. The disadvantage is that gross margins will be under pressure because hardware subsidies are higher in low-end markets, and the payback period per user will lengthen from 14 months to 22-28 months. We prefer to view Starlink as a story of "user growth taking precedence over ARPU" until 2027, and we shouldn't be overly sensitive to single-point declines in ARPU in quarterly financial reports, but we should be wary of the potential risk of a simultaneous slowdown in both "user growth rate + ARPU".

AI is the other pillar. Q1 capital expenditures burned through $7.7 billion, the vast majority of which went into the second phase of the Memphis data center in Texas. The computing power contract with Anthropic, valued at $1.25 billion per month, sounds attractive, but the contract clearly states that it can be unilaterally terminated within 90 days . This means that the AI ​​revenue on paper could evaporate at any time.

The Space segment continues to incur losses due to Starship's R&D. The logic behind this business is: make rockets incredibly cheap, then collect tolls through Starlink, and finally consume all the computing power with AI data centers. All three pieces are indispensable, but only Starlink is generating cash.

In terms of control, Musk holds 85.1% of the voting rights. This is an even more absolute control structure than Zuckerberg's during the Meta era , meaning that retail investors' purchases are essentially driven by "faith." SpaceX's prospectus gives a TAM of $28.5 trillion, broken down as follows: satellite broadband $1.2 trillion, government and defense launches $400 billion, AI computing power $12 trillion, deep space and lunar economy $9 trillion, and the remainder in industrial aerospace. Most of these figures will not be verifiable until 2040.

TSLA: The "Hidden Protagonist" Mentioned 87 Times in the Prospectus

If you could only choose one SpaceX concept stock, the answer wouldn't be rocket companies, it would be Tesla.

SpaceX's prospectus mentions Tesla 87 times, far more than any other entity. The two companies share chip design teams, Dojo's computing architecture, and the production capacity of the Terafab chip factory in Texas. Musk's "Heart of the Galaxy" project, publicly announced in early 2026, essentially connects SpaceX's computing power with Tesla's FSD training data pool— this isn't two companies, but a deliberately split tech empire .

The capital market is already voting with its feet. Since submitting its prospectus on March 25, TSLA has risen 10.24%. This increase may not seem as impressive as many small-cap concept stocks, but it's important to remember that Tesla's market capitalization is in the trillions, and a 10% increase means adding the entire market capitalization of Ford Motor Company. What is the market betting on? It's that after SpaceX's IPO, Tesla's indirect stake in SpaceX will be revalued.

A more radical speculation is a merger. There is indeed an expectation in the market that the two companies will integrate around 2027, but the probability of this depends on the tax structure and Musk's patience with the Tesla board. We are more inclined to view TSLA as a "high-certainty side pocket" for SpaceX's IPO rather than a "merger lottery."

If you're bullish on SpaceX's AI computing power story, then Tesla's Dojo is the closest version you can buy directly on the secondary market. If you're bullish on SpaceX's cash flow story, then Tesla isn't the best choice—it doesn't have a direct business connection with Starlink.

Three direct opponents: RKLB, ASTS, FLY

The most awkward situation for SpaceX after its IPO isn't for SpaceX itself, but for these three companies. They benefit from the "space stock premium," yet they must prove that "they won't be swallowed up by SpaceX."

Rocket Lab (RKLB): A smaller version of SpaceX, the only meal replacement.

RKLB is the king of this round of gains, up 88.85% since the end of March. The logic is very simple: retail investors can't buy SpaceX, so they buy the company that most resembles SpaceX. Rocket Lab's Electron small rocket has already achieved commercial steady-state launches, and the Neutron medium rocket under development is comparable to the Falcon 9, with its first flight expected at the end of 2026.

Neutron's timeline is currently RKLB's most sensitive variable. The company's initial target for 2024 was the end of 2025 for its first flight, which was then adjusted to Q1 2026 in mid-2025, and further postponed to Q4 2026 at the end of 2025. The stock price corrections corresponding to these two postponements were both in the 15-25% range , indicating extremely high market attention at this juncture. Any news regarding engine testing, joint training, or weather windows can trigger short-term price fluctuations.

At the engine level, Archimedes has completed long-range ignition testing. The second-stage recovery system is based on the Falcon 9 but simplified, foregoing grid wings and opting for a more conservative parachute recovery. If Neutron successfully completes its maiden flight by the end of 2026, RKLB will secure a place in the competition for NASA's NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1 contract, a five-year, $5 billion government order pool. Conversely, if the maiden flight is further delayed until 2027, the entire valuation anchor will loosen —the market's patience for "substitute" assets has an expiration date.

But RKLB's real competitive advantage isn't its rockets, but rather its quiet transformation into a "space IDM"—building its own rockets, developing its own satellite bus, providing its own launch services, and operating its own constellation. This vertically integrated approach is the same one SpaceX has followed, and the market is willing to give it a valuation premium.

The risks are also obvious. If Neutron is delayed or its maiden flight fails, the entire "meal replacement" story will be repriced by the market . And SpaceX's IPO itself is a valuation trap—when the real SpaceX is available for purchase, how much will the meal replacement still be worth?

AST SpaceMobile (ASTS): The Space Version of AT&T

ASTS takes a different approach: direct satellite connection from mobile phones. No dedicated terminal is needed; ordinary iPhones and Android phones can simply look up and connect to the space-based base station. The key point of this story is that it directly challenges the same TAM (Transmission Access Method) used by Starlink Direct to Cell .

ASTS has already signed partnerships with carriers such as AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, and Rakuten, and BlueWalker 3 has achieved a test speed of 14Mbps in orbit. However, its satellite deployment is far behind Starlink, and the entire constellation will require another 18-30 months to become fully operational.

High volatility is the norm for AASTS—daily price swings of 10% are common. If your risk tolerance is low, this stock is not suitable as a core holding . However, if you're betting that "operators don't want Starlink to have a monopoly," then AASTS is the sharpest tool in that logic.

Firefly Aerospace (FLY): A Dark Horse with Potential

FLY is a severely undervalued stock in this round, with a seemingly large increase of +70.38%, but its fundamental support may be even stronger than RKLB. The Alpha rocket has completed multiple commercial launches, and the Blue Ghost lunar lander is one of the core contractors for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS).

FLY's core narrative is the "Earth-Moon ecosystem"—a full-stack capability from low Earth orbit to the lunar surface. When SpaceX's Starship turned lunar economics from science fiction into reality, FLY was one of the most direct beneficiaries. It doesn't have the same well-known brand as RKLB, but its ability to secure NASA contracts is probably the strongest among the three .

The common risk for all three is that after SpaceX goes public, the "substitute funds" that were originally invested in them may be withdrawn and redirected to SpaceX itself. This is a typical "shoe dropping" risk, and in terms of portfolio allocation, it is necessary to reduce positions in advance rather than chasing the high price.

Partner ecosystem: SATS, PL, AMZN, TMUS, QCOM, FLYX

SpaceX's IPO is a shot in the arm for its partners—it proves that the ecosystem itself can generate market value, and all upstream and downstream companies will be repriced.

EchoStar (SATS): Major Spectrum Seller

SATS is one of the biggest winners in this ecosystem game. At the end of 2025, it sold its S-band and part of the AWS-4 spectrum to SpaceX for $8.5 billion in cash plus $8.5 billion in SpaceX stock. This deal transformed SATS overnight from a struggling satellite TV company into a major shareholder of SpaceX .

Since the end of March, SATS has risen by 23.81%, which seems modest, but this increase does not fully reflect the valuation release of SpaceX's stock portion after the IPO. If SpaceX's valuation remains at $1.75 trillion after its IPO, the actual value of the $8.5 billion worth of shares held by SATS will be significantly higher than the book value.

Planet Labs (PL): The Most Loyal Passengers

PL is a frequent user of SpaceX's carpooling launches, with over 90% of its satellites launched using Falcon 9 rockets. Its stock price has increased by 30.76% since the end of March. The company itself is a leader in Earth observation, scanning the entire Earth's surface daily, and selling its data products to governments, agriculture, insurance companies, and hedge funds.

PL and SpaceX have a truly symbiotic relationship. SpaceX's IPO will not change PL's fundamentals, but it will make the market re-evaluate the ceiling of the "Earth observation" sector . If you are optimistic about the "data as an asset" logic, PL is the cleanest target in this line.

Amazon (AMZN): A Dramatic Turnaround from Rival to Partner

Amazon's Kuiper constellation was originally considered Starlink's biggest potential challenger. However, in the second half of 2025, AMZN unexpectedly awarded some of the Kuiper satellite launch contracts to SpaceX—citing insufficient capacity from ULA and Blue Origin.

This is a classic example of business logic overriding political stance . For AMZN, SpaceX's IPO means a comparable valuation for the Kuiper project has emerged, and the synergistic value of Amazon Web Services (AWS) + Kuiper may be rediscovered by the market. However, AMZN is too large, and the SpaceX IPO is more of a "marginal benefit" for it than a core driver.

T-Mobile (TMUS): Direct to Cell's Top Ally

TMUS is the exclusive carrier partner in the US for Starlink Direct Mobile service. Starting in 2025, T-Mobile users will be able to send and receive text messages via Starlink satellite in areas without signal coverage, with voice and data support expanding in 2026. This is a revolutionary story that allows carriers to bypass traditional base station construction .

TMUS's stock price reaction was relatively mild, but it has secured a 10-year cooperation framework. If Starlink Direct to Cell user penetration exceeds expectations, TMUS will be the most stable cash flow beneficiary along this line.

Qualcomm (QCOM): The Enabler of Underlying Technologies

QCOM surged 56.59%, a jump that surprised many. This is because Starlink's satellite baseband chips, Direct to Cell's mobile modems, and some communication chips used in SpaceX's data centers all have deep collaborations with Qualcomm.

QCOM is the most "bottom-level" shovel seller in the SpaceX ecosystem . It doesn't bet on any single application, but it gets a share of the profits whenever an application becomes successful. This logic is completely consistent with its position in the smartphone era.

flyExclusive (FLYX): Starlink Airlines Distributor

FLYX is a private jet charter service provider and one of Starlink Aviation's core dealers in the private aviation sector. The company is small and highly flexible, but its potential ceiling is clear – the private aviation market itself is only so big.

If you want flexibility, FLYX provides it; if you want certainty, FLYX is not the answer . This is a typical "small-cap beta" stock.

Premium Channels: GOOGL, BAC, DXYZ, XOVR, VCX

This group is characterized by "indirectly holding SpaceX equity." Before SpaceX went public, they were the only channel for retail investors to buy SpaceX shares; after the IPO, the value of this channel will fundamentally change .

Google and BAC: Giants that Win Without Effort

Google holds approximately 7% of SpaceX, a legacy of its 2015 investment. Based on a valuation of $1.75 trillion, this stake is worth about $120 billion on paper. For Google, this is a "dormant asset" that won't change the company's fundamentals but will result in a substantial revaluation of its financial statements.

BAC is one of the lead underwriters for SpaceX's IPO, and its underwriting fee share is expected to be in the range of $500 million to $800 million. For a bank of BAC's size, this amount of money will not change its valuation, but it will become a "star deal" this quarter . The capital market loves star deals.

DXYZ, XOVR, VCX: The last window for retail investors to buy SpaceX

These three funds are essentially "closed-end funds that package SpaceX equity." DXYZ is Destiny Tech100, XOVR is ERShares Private-Public Crossover ETF, and VCX is Vinia Capital. They all hold a significant proportion of SpaceX stock through the secondary market or private placements.

Since the end of March, DXYZ has risen by 79.56%, with its market price premium relative to NAV once exceeding 200%. This is a very dangerous signal . This premium exists only because "retail investors have no other way to buy SpaceX." Once SpaceX goes public and retail investors can directly buy the stock, this premium will have no reason to exist.

Historically, there have been instances where the same scenario played out exactly. GBTC maintained a positive premium of over 30% for an extended period before the Bitcoin ETF was listed in 2021, only to immediately switch to a negative discount of over 20% after the ETF's listing. DXYZ, XOVR, and VCX will likely replicate this pattern, and due to their even higher underlying premiums, the decline could be even greater .

If you currently hold these funds, you need to seriously consider: are you profiting from SpaceX's valuation increase, or from the scarcity premium of "retail investors having no access"? If it's the latter, June 12th is the day this scarcity will become zero .

RDW Redwire: Another Way to Play the Space Shovel Seller

Redwire isn't on the media's list of concept stocks, but we think it deserves its own chapter—because its investment logic is different from all the companies mentioned above.

Rocket companies earn transportation fees, satellite companies earn bandwidth fees, and Redwire earns the " parts fees for building satellites ." Solar arrays, deployable structures, camera payloads, space 3D printing equipment—all the hardware components needed for spacecraft—Redwire is one of the hidden champions in this niche market.

In late 2025, RDW acquired Edge Autonomy, a company specializing in military drones and military space payloads. This acquisition transformed Redwire from a purely commercial aerospace company into a dual-use defense contractor . In the current US defense budget structure, dual-use companies typically receive significantly higher valuations than purely commercial companies.

Even more interesting is the microgravity pharmaceutical industry. Redwire's PIL-BOX microgravity culture device has already completed multiple protein crystal growth experiments on the International Space Station. Some drugs produced in a microgravity environment have a much higher purity than those on Earth. This is an early-stage industry, but its total assets (TAM) could reach hundreds of billions of dollars.

Specifically, in terms of product lines, PIL-BOX's current clients include top-tier pharmaceutical companies like Bristol Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly, focusing on optimizing the crystal morphology of monoclonal antibody drugs. Ground-based cultivation can only reliably produce one crystal form, while microgravity allows for the selection of multiple crystal forms, each corresponding to different drug solubilities, stability, and half-lives . The commercial value of this lies not in "drug manufacturing in space," but in "using space data to guide ground-based processes"—a typical high-value-added data business, with a single experiment priced between $2 million and $5 million.

A further application is in stem cell culture and tissue engineering. 3D cell culture in a microgravity environment can avoid the sedimentation problem of terrestrial culture, theoretically enabling the creation of truly three-dimensional organ analogs. This approach is still in the preclinical stage, with the first batch of data entering the IND stage not expected until 2028 at the earliest. However, once successful, Redwire's holdings will no longer be aerospace stocks, but biotech stocks —the valuation logic is completely different, and the corresponding PS ratio will jump from 3-5 times for aerospace stocks to 15-25 times for biotechs.

RDW's current valuation is low for three reasons: its history as a SPAC, continuous losses, and relatively small revenue compared to rocket companies. While none of these factors affect the quality of its core assets, they do impact retail investor interest .

At the catalyst level, the Trump administration's "Iron Dome" air defense system plan has a direct demand for Redwire's very low Earth orbit satellites and Edge Autonomy's payloads. This is a pool of government contracts that could be worth tens of billions of dollars.

The specific technical roadmap for Iron Dome is still under evaluation, but the largely confirmed direction is a multi-layered architecture of "low-Earth orbit multi-layered detection + high-Earth orbit early warning + terminal interception," benchmarking an upgraded version of the original Israeli Iron Dome combined with the legacy of the US-based SDI. Redwire has access to different sub-contracts with Iron Dome across its three business lines: low-Earth orbit satellite bus, Edge Autonomy in tactical UAVs and high-altitude payloads, and PIL-BOX in space materials and sensor testing. The scarcity of a single small-to-mid-cap company possessing all three types of assets is the most easily overlooked aspect of Redwire's valuation story .

On the timeline, the Pentagon plans to release the first batch of tenders in the second half of 2026, begin large-scale procurement in 2027, and complete the first phase of deployment before 2030. This means that RDW's current undervaluation window may only last 12-18 months—once orders begin to materialize, the market will quickly reclassify it from a "commercial space stock" to a "defense contracting stock," and the corresponding valuation multiple will structurally increase, similar to the revaluation of Palantir in 2023 when it switched from a technology stock to a defense stock.

We won't say that Redwire will definitely become the next RKLB, but its investment logic is based on the dual attributes of " infrastructure + shovel seller ," which is more stable than simply betting on whether a particular rocket company will succeed. If your portfolio already has high-elasticity exposure to RKLB or ATS, then RDW is a reasonably cost-effective hedging option.

Risks and Outlook: The Story of Market Pricing in Advance

After reviewing all 17 companies, we need to return to the most basic question—has everything already been priced?

More than 60 days have passed since the prospectus was submitted, and almost all related stocks have seen double-digit or even triple-digit gains. This means that the market has already priced in most of the positive news surrounding SpaceX's IPO . On June 12th, the actual listing day, what is more likely to happen is not a new round of broad-based gains, but rather profit-taking as the "good news is realized."

Historical patterns also support this judgment. From Alibaba to Facebook, from Saudi Aramco to Saudi Aramco, all mega-IPOs with a market capitalization exceeding $500 billion have a high probability of underperforming the market in their first year after listing . The liquidity-draining effect is real, and so is the valuation anchoring effect.

SpaceX's own fundamental risks cannot be ignored. Starship is still in the testing phase, and the most recent test flight still failed to complete the full mission profile; Starlink ARPU continues to decline, from $130/month in the early days to below $80/month currently; although the AI ​​sector is burning through cash, its growth rate is far lower than that of xAI, OpenAI, and Anthropic's self-operated businesses, which are also burning through cash.

Our assessment is that SpaceX is a great company, but its $1.75 trillion valuation requires perfect execution over the next three years to justify . Any mishap in any环节 could lead to a 20-40% correction in valuation. At the concept stock level, the divergence will be more pronounced than a general rise – true investors (TSLA, QCOM, SATS, RDW) and those destined to take over (DXYZ, XOVR, VCX) will be quickly separated by the market within three months of their IPOs.

Tail risks also deserve a separate mention . For a company the size of SpaceX, typical valuation fluctuations involve a 20-40% correction. However, what truly causes structural funds to withdraw are a few low-probability but highly disruptive events: a fatal accident involving Starship before a manned mission, a black swan event involving Musk's health or legal issues, the US government interfering with SpaceX's equity structure in the name of national security, and the escalation of space militarization competition to the point of asset damage.

These events, taken individually, may seem unlikely, but if any one of them materializes, it will impact not only SpaceX's valuation but also the liquidity discount of the entire 17 related concept stocks sector. Historically, the Tesla privatization saga in 2018 and the leverage contagion triggered by the Twitter acquisition in 2022 demonstrate that assets strongly tied to Musk are not immune to tail risks. In terms of portfolio allocation, we prefer to keep the total position in the SpaceX ecosystem within 10-15% of the portfolio, rather than solely betting on the space theme due to attractive short-term gains—tail risks are hedged through position management, not stock selection.

Everyone looks up when the rocket launches, but the real money-making moment is often when the rocket falls back to the ground and is recovered .