The extraordinary investor demand surrounding SpaceX’s record-breaking initial public offering has reverberated far beyond Wall Street, reaching South Korea’s foreign exchange market and contributing to one of the sharpest episodes of pressure on the Korean won this year.
However, a major source of that strain now appears to be fading.
According to a source familiar with foreign exchange transactions, cited by Reuters, the estimated $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion in dollar purchases linked to South Korean participation in SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO has reached its final stages, easing concerns that the transaction would continue to weigh on the local currency.
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The development comes as SpaceX moves toward pricing what is expected to be the largest IPO in history. Reuters reported on Tuesday that the Elon Musk-led aerospace and satellite company has attracted more than $250 billion in investor orders, more than three times the $75 billion it seeks to raise, and one of the strongest displays of investor appetite ever seen in global capital markets.
“There was significant interest in how much dollar demand the SpaceX IPO would generate in the dollar-won foreign exchange market. The volume itself sits around $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion,” the source said.
“However, the process has been split and is nearly complete, so there won’t be downward pressure on the won on the FX market going forward. The supply and demand issues related to this have been resolved.”
The comments offered some relief to market participants who have watched the Korean currency come under sustained pressure in recent weeks.
The won strengthened following the report, gaining 0.56% to trade at 1,524.1 per dollar during afternoon trading. The currency had earlier been pushed to its weakest level in 17 years as institutional investors and wealthy retail investors scrambled to secure dollars needed to participate in SpaceX’s pre-IPO allocation process.
The episode serves as an example of the global reach of mega-capital raisings tied to artificial intelligence and space infrastructure companies. While IPOs have historically been concentrated within equity markets, the scale of SpaceX’s offering has created ripple effects across currency markets, bond markets, and portfolio allocations worldwide.
South Korean investors have emerged as some of the most enthusiastic international buyers of high-profile U.S. technology and growth stocks in recent years. The country’s retail investors, often referred to as “ants” for their collective market influence, have poured billions of dollars into overseas equities, particularly U.S. technology names linked to artificial intelligence.
SpaceX’s listing appears to have intensified that trend. The estimated $1.5 billion conversion demand may appear modest by global standards, but it had an outsized impact on South Korea’s currency market because of the relative size of daily trading volumes.
The dollar-won spot market averages roughly $14 billion in daily turnover, making it more vulnerable to sudden bursts of demand than deeper currency markets such as the euro-dollar or dollar-yen pairs. As a result, a single large transaction tied to a highly anticipated IPO was sufficient to exert noticeable downward pressure on the won, even as South Korea’s external economic position remained strong.
The pressure came despite the country recording a near-record current account surplus of $28.3 billion in April, a figure that would ordinarily support the local currency. The disconnect highlights how capital flows linked to investment demand can sometimes overwhelm traditional economic fundamentals in the short term.
The won remains among Asia’s weakest-performing currencies this year, having lost roughly 5% against the U.S. dollar despite strong semiconductor exports and robust external balances.
Authorities have responded by stepping up oversight of foreign exchange activity. In a significant move, the Bank of Korea and the Financial Supervisory Service announced plans to conduct joint inspections of major foreign exchange banks for the first time in 14 years. The review is aimed at identifying any attempts to manipulate exchange rates or exploit periods of market stress for profit.
SpaceX’s offering is widely expected to serve as the opening act for a series of enormous listings that could include AI leaders OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as other technology firms seeking access to public markets. Together, these companies could add several trillion dollars in market value to global equity markets over the coming years, attracting capital from institutional and retail investors around the world.
While the easing of SpaceX-related foreign exchange demand removes one immediate source of pressure on the won, it also offers a preview of the challenges that could emerge as investors increasingly shift capital toward a new generation of technology giants dominating global markets.