1/ Unitree’s new robot named Superman runs faster than Usain Bolt ever did—12.66 m/s, they claim. But the real story isn’t the speed.
It’s the IPO that just shattered records on Shanghai’s STAR Market, with retail buyers covering their tranche 8,288 times over.
That’s not demand. That’s a collective suspension of disbelief.
2/ Let’s put the numbers in context. Unitree priced at 150.8 yuan, raised $905 million, and now carries a valuation near $9 billion.
At 36 times 2025 sales, it’s nearly double the multiple of Hong Kong-listed rival UBTech.
Revenue grew 4x to $252 million, but net profit is only $87 million. That means buyers are paying over 100 times earnings.
“The ledger remembers what the crowd forgets.”
3/ I’ve been here before. In 2017, I spent three months auditing 15 ICO whitepapers during the boom. Four had critical governance flaws—insider vesting, hidden emissions.
Back then, the crowd bought the story. Today, the crowd buys the sprint.
The mechanism is identical: a narrative that feels too good to verify.
4/ Unitree’s engineers built Superman in just over three months. The robot’s legs are 0.85 meters long, and it clears a 2-meter standing high jump.
Impressive? Absolutely. But the company has released no independent verification of the 12.66 m/s claim.
In crypto, we demand on-chain verification. If a DeFi protocol claimed a 100% APY without a public audit, we’d call it a scam.
“Truth is not consensus, it is verification.”
5/ The IPO demand itself is a data point. The retail tranche was covered 8,288 times. That’s not interest—that’s FOMO weaponized by a low float.
Chinese memory maker CXMT surged 466% in one session on the same board. The pattern is clear: retail investors are betting on momentum, not fundamentals.
This is the same psychology that drove ICOs to $1 billion raises in hours.
6/ Unitree shipped 5,500 humanoid units in 2025. Most went to research labs and entertainment buyers, not factory floors.
That’s important. The bull case for robotics is industrial automation. But Unitree’s revenue still comes from early adopters and hype buyers.
It’s like a DeFi project that launches a token with great metrics but no real users. The valuation is a bet on future adoption, not present utility.
7/ Meanwhile, capital is flooding into robotics. Tether led a $1.4 billion round for NEURA Robotics. NVIDIA struck deals with LG and Doosan. Elon Musk is building a record-sized chip factory.
This is the macro context. But macro doesn’t justify a 100x earnings multiple for a company that hasn’t proven industrial scalability.
“Education dissolves fear; fear creates scarcity.”
Right now, the fear is missing out. The scarcity is the IPO allocation. The education is missing.
8/ Let’s be contrarian for a moment. The robot’s speed is real—even if unverified, the engineering is plausible. Unitree’s revenue growth is real, and the company has a working product.
But the IPO valuation is a bet on the future of embodied AI, and that future is uncertain.
The real question: Does a sprint record convert into industrial orders?
In my DeFi Safety Squad days, I learned that a protocol’s TVL doesn’t guarantee its security. Similarly, a robot’s speed doesn’t guarantee its utility.
9/ The foundation of this story is a lack of verifiable data. Unitree hasn’t published the kinematic analysis of the sprint. They haven’t shown third-party validation.
In crypto, we call that a “rug pull waiting to happen.”
I’m not saying the company is fraudulent. I’m saying the market is rewarding the narrative, not the evidence.
“Code is law, but ethics is the conscience.”
10/ What does this mean for the reader? If you’re holding Unitree shares or considering buying, ask yourself:
- What is the independent verification of the robot’s claims?
- How much of the valuation is based on hype vs. repeatable revenue?
- What happens when the next sprint record comes from a competitor?
These are the same questions we should ask of every DeFi token or NFT project. The bull market doesn’t make false narratives true—it just makes them profitable.
11/ My takeaway: Unitree’s Superman is a technological marvel. But the IPO is a test of investor discipline.
The future is built by those who audit the present, not by those who run faster than the crowd.
“The ledger remembers what the crowd forgets.”
And right now, the ledger of hard data has a missing entry: verification.