Traders on offshore crypto exchanges are already betting millions on Anthropic’s stock market debut — through contracts that value the AI company at roughly $1.9 trillion, yet hand the buyer no shares whatsoever.
The contracts, known as pre-IPO perpetuals, trade around the clock on venues including Hyperliquid, a decentralised exchange where trades settle on a public blockchain. They track what Anthropic might be worth when it lists, weeks before any public shares exist.
The $1.87–$1.92 trillion price tag
Contracts across seven offshore crypto exchanges imply a valuation of roughly $1.87 trillion to $1.92 trillion, according to Unchained’s calculations. That sits near the top of the $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion range the listing is reported to target. The Financial Times has put investor expectations at $1.5 trillion to $1.75 trillion, with pricing reportedly expected around November 19 and 20 — reported expectations, not a confirmed timetable from Anthropic.
For scale, that implied price is roughly double Anthropic’s last private valuation of $965 billion from its May funding round. But it is built on thin foundations: Anthropic’s IPO filing leaves the share count and price range blank, so until the company prices the deal, the only link between these contracts and reality is trader expectation.
Two contracts, no shares attached
Two contracts trade on Hyperliquid. The first, Entropy’s ANTH, tracks Anthropic’s total valuation: each $1 of its price represents $1 billion of value, so a reading near 1,880 implies about $1.9 trillion. The second, trade.xyz’s ANT, references a single Class A share. It opened on Monday at about $138, fell roughly 20 percent in its first hour, and was near $115 by Tuesday afternoon, according to CoinDesk and Unchained.
Neither contract is backed by Anthropic shares, and neither gives its holder any claim on the company. Trade.xyz has described what a holder gets, in a letter to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, as synthetic price exposure and nothing more: no shares, no allocation, no voting rights and no claim against the issuer.
The leverage sharpens the risk. ANT carries up to 10 times leverage, so a 10 percent move against a position can wipe out the collateral behind it. Settlement is in USDC, a dollar-pegged stablecoin, and the contracts are not offered to US residents.
Anthropic’s warning — and its limit
Anthropic has not commented publicly on these specific perpetual contracts, but its standing help-page warning is blunt: anyone claiming to sell its shares to the public through forward contracts, tokenized securities or other mechanisms is likely offering something worthless, and any unapproved transfer of its stock is void.
CoinDesk notes an important caveat: Anthropic has not said whether that warning extends to perpetual contracts, which deliver no shares and may not directly breach its transfer restrictions. Readers should not treat the warning as a confirmed company statement about these particular perps.
What happens on listing day
Once Anthropic lists on Nasdaq, trade.xyz says ANT converts into an ordinary perpetual contract tied to the listed price, typically in the first regular session after shares start trading. Trade.xyz has set November 20 as its own expected listing date — its estimate, not one Anthropic has confirmed. If listing is delayed, the contract has a 60-day grace period through January 19, 2027.
Crucially, the IPO price itself is set by Anthropic and its banks independently of these derivative markets. The crypto price does not set the IPO price.
History suggests the crypto price is an unreliable forecast. Seven earlier pre-IPO perpetual contracts tracked by Unchained missed the opening trade by about 25 percent on average, with every venue wrong at once — even though, when a contract sat above the IPO price, the stock also closed its first day above it.
Why this matters
The episode shows how much appetite there is for exposure to the year’s biggest AI listing before it exists — and how that appetite is being met outside regulated stock markets, with leverage, by traders who accept that they own nothing if the bet goes wrong. For ordinary investors, the distinction matters: buying a pre-IPO perp is not buying Anthropic.
Frequently asked questions
Do these contracts give you Anthropic shares? No. They give synthetic price exposure only — no shares, no allocation, no voting rights and no claim on the company.
Is $1.9 trillion Anthropic’s IPO valuation? No. It is the valuation implied by offshore crypto contracts. The reported IPO target range is $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion, and the filing leaves the price range blank.
Can US residents trade these contracts? No. The contracts are not offered to US residents, according to Unchained and CoinDesk reporting.
Sources
- Unchained: https://unchainedcrypto.com/is-crypto-overpricing-anthropic/
- CoinDesk: https://Www.coindesk.com/business/2026/10/31/traders-are-already-placing-leveraged-bets-on-anthropic-s-ipo-using-crypto-contracts
