IonQ, Inc. (NYSE: IONQ), Rigetti Computing, Inc. (NASDAQ: RGTI), and D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS) have seen their insiders collectively sell approximately $863 million more stock than they have purchased over the past three years.
The figure is drawn from an analysis of Form 4 filings and carries a notable caveat: open-market insider buying across all three companies has been nearly nonexistent during that same period.
The selling trend stands in sharp contrast to the performance these stocks have delivered to outside investors, with some trailing 12-month returns reaching as high as 6,200% at peak enthusiasm.
Despite those extraordinary gains, insiders at all three pure-play quantum computing companies remained substantial net sellers throughout much of the rally rather than adding to their own positions.
Valuations offer the most straightforward explanation for insider reluctance, with price-to-sales ratios as of August 28 standing at 68.87, 406.82, and 532.38 for IonQ, Rigetti, and D-Wave respectively.
Those multiples sit at levels that have historically proven unsustainable for early-stage technology companies, even those at the center of genuinely transformative innovations.
Fundamentals across all three companies did improve meaningfully in 2026, which complicates any straightforward reading of the insider-selling data as purely negative.
IonQ reported second-quarter revenue of $80.1 million, representing 287% year-over-year growth, and raised its full-year 2026 revenue guidance to a range of $280 million to $290 million, with remaining performance obligations totaling $485 million.
D-Wave reported first-half bookings growth of 1,120% year-over-year, with production applications accounting for 37.3% of its first-half cloud-services revenue, signaling genuine commercial traction beyond experimental deployments.
Rigetti, the smallest of the three by revenue, has been advancing a 108-qubit hardware roadmap while pursuing government financing including a prospective Department of Commerce effort worth up to $100 million over three years tied to CHIPS Act infrastructure.
Institutional sentiment was mixed, with hedge fund ownership in IonQ rising from 39 to 42 funds and Rigetti climbing from 29 to 34 between the first and second quarters of 2026.
D-Wave moved in the opposite direction, with hedge fund ownership falling sharply from 26 to 17 funds despite reporting the strongest year-over-year bookings growth among the three companies.
The bull case rests on the argument that 2026’s improved fundamentals mark a genuine commercial inflection point rather than a continuation of speculative enthusiasm disconnected from business reality.
Insider selling is also common in fast-growing technology companies where compensation is heavily stock-based, meaning the volume of sales does not automatically translate to a loss of confidence in long-term prospects.
The bear case, however, is harder to dismiss: the near-total absence of insider buying over three years suggests that those with the deepest visibility into these businesses have not used the rally as an opportunity to increase their personal exposure.
History shows that heavily hyped technologies frequently undergo sharp corrections before commercial adoption catches up with the valuations the market has already assigned to them.
Investors already holding these stocks would be well-served to monitor any shift toward insider buying as a potential signal of changing internal conviction at the executive and board level.
New investors considering entry at current price-to-sales multiples should recognize that sustained execution on commercial adoption, not simply revenue growth from a small base, will ultimately determine whether today’s valuations can be justified over time.
