Avalanche is a really good project especially if you are planning to hold it for the long term. Upon mainnet release, I am expecting the price to be at least x1.5 that's just my opinion and not investment advice.
My prediction is at least x2.5 because Avalanche is really buliding very fast. Not many projects keep to meet timelines, just saying soon but Avalanche really delievers. ETH 2.0 was firstly promised 2 years back and still isn't live.
I don't trust the IOU AVAX price.
You are right, free market price can be different and IOU is always very shady.