By Hamza Faisal
Anthropic has not sold a single share to the public yet, but traders are already betting millions of dollars on what its stock market debut will be worth. The bets are not happening on a stock exchange. They are happening on crypto venues, through contracts that track Anthropic's expected valuation — and that hand the buyer no shares whatsoever.
The activity centres on Hyperliquid, a decentralised crypto exchange where trades settle on a public blockchain. Two perpetual contracts tied to Anthropic now trade there, weeks ahead of the company's expected listing in mid-November.
Two contracts, no shares attached
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 United States Securities and Exchange Commission, as synthetic price exposure and nothing more: no shares, no allocation, no voting rights and no claim against the issuer. Winners are paid by losers on the other side of the trade, not by Anthropic.
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. About $1.7 million in open positions built up around its debut, and its price is set by trading on the venue itself, because there is no public Anthropic share price for it to follow yet.
What the $1.9 trillion price tag really means
Contracts across seven offshore crypto exchanges imply a valuation of roughly $1.87 trillion to $1.92 trillion, according to Unchained — 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.
That is roughly double Anthropic's last private valuation of $965 billion from its May funding round. It is also built on thin foundations: the 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.
History suggests that link is loose. 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.
Anthropic's warning — and why the bets keep coming
Anthropic has not commented publicly on these perpetual contracts, but its standing warning is blunt: its help page says 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 Anthropic has not said whether that warning extends to perpetual contracts, which deliver no shares and may not directly breach its transfer restrictions. None of these contracts are offered to United States residents.
Once Anthropic lists, ANT is due to convert into an ordinary perpetual tracking the listed stock, at which point it will finally have a real price to follow. Until then, the $1.9 trillion figure is best read for what it is: a measure of excitement about the debut, not a valuation the market has tested.
