September 3, 2026

Markets updates

How to trade Anthropic before the IPO

Anthropic has filed for an IPO while ANTH prices it near $1.95T. Here is how the pre-IPO perpetual works, what it tracks, and the risks before listing.

Anthropic is still private, but its valuation is already trading like a public mega-cap.

At the September 3 snapshot, ANTH-USDC was trading near 1,955. The contract is quoted in billions of dollars of implied company value, so that level prices Anthropic at roughly $1.95T. Anthropic’s latest private round, completed in May, valued the company at $965B post-money. Liquid

That gap is the trade.

ANTH-USDC gives traders long or short exposure to Anthropic’s pre-IPO valuation before a public listing. It is not Anthropic stock, tokenized equity, or an IPO allocation. The market is asking whether public investors will validate a valuation roughly twice the last private mark after they finally see the prospectus, financial statements, capital structure, and risk factors. DefiLlama

Key takeaways

Anthropic confidentially submitted a draft S-1 on June 1, but the company has not set the offer price or number of shares. Anthropic
The latest private round valued Anthropic at $965B. ANTH-USDC was pricing it near $1.95T on September 3, roughly 2.0x the private mark. Anthropic
ANTH is quoted in company-valuation units. One point represents $1B of implied Anthropic value, not a per-share price. DefiLlama
At $1.95T, the market is implying roughly 30x Anthropic’s reported $65B annual revenue run rate and about 9.8x to 10.3x its reported 2028 revenue forecast. Reuters
ANTH-USDC is a cash-settled derivative. It provides no shares, voting rights, dividends, IPO allocation, or ownership claim. DefiLlama

The Anthropic IPO setup

Anthropic confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 to the SEC on June 1, 2026. The filing gives the company the option to proceed after SEC review, but it does not lock in an IPO. Anthropic said the offering still depends on market conditions and other factors. Anthropic

The company has not publicly set the offer price or number of shares. It has also not announced a final listing date, exchange, or public ticker.

Reuters reported, citing The Information, that Anthropic plans to make its prospectus public after Labor Day and could list in late September or early October. Anthropic did not confirm that timeline. As of publication, the prospectus was still not public. Reuters

That means traders are pricing the company before seeing the disclosures that normally anchor an IPO: audited financials, diluted share count, customer concentration, stock-based compensation, cash requirements, governance, and formal risk factors.

The Anthropic valuation ladder

Anthropic has repriced at extraordinary speed:

September 2025: Anthropic raised $13B at a $183B post-money valuation. Anthropic
February 2026: It raised $30B at a $380B post-money valuation. Anthropic
May 2026: It raised $65B at a $965B post-money valuation. Anthropic
September 2026: ANTH-USDC was pricing an implied valuation near $1.95T. Liquid

The private mark increased more than fivefold from September 2025 to May 2026. The live pre-IPO market is now pricing another doubling from the May round.

In about one year, the implied value moved from $183B to nearly $2T.

That is not a normal late-stage repricing. It is the market underwriting Anthropic as a potential winner in a category that could absorb a meaningful share of global software, labor, and infrastructure spending.

What ANTH-USDC is actually pricing

ANTH-USDC, technically listed as io:ANTH, is an Entropy pre-IPO perpetual deployed through HIP-3 on Hyperliquid. Entropy Docs

It is quoted in valuation units rather than a conventional share price. One ANTH point represents $1B of implied Anthropic valuation. A price of 1,955 therefore represents an implied company valuation of approximately $1.955T.

This distinction matters.

ANTH at 1,955 does not mean the market expects Anthropic shares to list at $1,955. The final per-share price will depend on the diluted share count and capital structure disclosed in the public filing.

ANTH-USDC is also not backed by Anthropic shares. It is cash-settled in USDC and does not provide equity, voting rights, dividends, shareholder protections, or access to the IPO.

The reference price uses Entropy’s pre-IPO oracle, which combines private-market information with order-book data. That creates continuous price discovery, but it does not eliminate oracle risk, liquidity risk, or the possibility that the contract diverges materially from private transactions or the eventual IPO valuation. DefiLlama

Markets.xyz terminal

Why the current ANTH price matters

At around $1.95T, ANTH was trading roughly 103% above Anthropic’s $965B Series H valuation. Liquid

The market is therefore pricing more than a successful IPO. It is pricing a major step-up before public investors have reviewed the prospectus.

That premium could reflect several expectations:

Anthropic prices the IPO materially above its latest private round.
Institutional demand pushes the opening public valuation higher.
Investors pay a scarcity premium for direct exposure to a frontier AI company.
Anthropic’s growth makes the May valuation stale before the listing begins.

But there is no clean arbitrage forcing ANTH back toward the private mark. Traders cannot freely buy Anthropic shares at a $965B valuation, deliver them into the perpetual, and capture the spread. Private shares are restricted and difficult to transfer.

That makes the premium informative, but not authoritative. A relatively small derivatives market can move faster than the private market, and it can also overshoot it.

What the market is underwriting

Reuters reported that Anthropic’s annual revenue run rate exceeded $65B by the end of July, up from $47B in May and about $9B at the end of 2025. Reuters

At a $1.95T implied valuation, that is roughly 30x the latest reported run-rate revenue.

Reuters also reported that Anthropic is projecting approximately $190B to $200B of revenue in 2028. Against that forecast, a $1.95T valuation represents roughly 9.8x to 10.3x 2028 revenue. Reuters

Those are rough implied equity-valuation-to-revenue ratios, not enterprise-value multiples. The public filing is needed to reconcile cash, debt, convertibles, stock-based compensation, and the fully diluted share count.

The valuation only works if several things happen together:

Revenue keeps compounding at an exceptional rate.
Enterprise and developer demand remains durable.
Inference and training costs fall as a percentage of revenue.
Anthropic converts scale into substantial operating margins.
Public investors continue assigning premium multiples to frontier AI companies.

The reported growth is extraordinary. The economics still need to be disclosed.

The bull case

The bull case starts with speed.

Anthropic’s reported run-rate revenue rose from about $9B at the end of 2025 to more than $65B by the end of July 2026. Claude’s adoption among developers and enterprises has given Anthropic a clearer commercial engine than many earlier frontier-model companies. Reuters

The company also has distribution across major cloud platforms, deep access to capital, and the ability to fund the compute required to remain near the research frontier. Anthropic

If the public filing confirms strong revenue quality, improving margins, limited customer concentration, and a credible path toward the reported 2028 targets, the latest private valuation may already look stale.

There is also a scarcity argument. Public markets have few direct ways to own a frontier AI model developer. A large, liquid Anthropic listing could attract substantial demand from technology funds, growth investors, and institutions seeking direct exposure to AI application revenue rather than semiconductor infrastructure.

In that scenario, ANTH is not overpricing the IPO. It is front-running the valuation public markets were going to reach anyway.

The bear case

The bear case is that nearly all of that success is already in the price.

A valuation near $2T before a public prospectus leaves little room for ordinary execution. Anthropic may need to deliver extraordinary growth, strong retention, improving unit economics, and lower compute intensity simply to justify the current mark.

Run-rate revenue is not the same as audited annual revenue. A 2028 forecast is not a contracted outcome. Public investors may apply a lower multiple once they can examine revenue recognition, gross margins, customer concentration, cash burn, and capital commitments.

Compute is the central economic risk. Anthropic has announced or reportedly signed enormous infrastructure agreements, including new multi-gigawatt capacity and cloud commitments worth tens of billions of dollars. Those agreements support growth, but they also make utilization, pricing, and margin discipline critical. Anthropic

Competition remains intense. OpenAI, Google, and other model developers can pressure pricing, product differentiation, talent costs, and distribution. Regulatory, safety, copyright, and government-contracting risks can also change the multiple quickly.

Then there is the instrument itself. ANTH can be wrong even if Anthropic performs well. Funding, liquidity, oracle design, basis risk, and forced liquidation can dominate the trade before the IPO resolves the valuation question.

The narrative-finance read

The market is pricing the prospectus before the prospectus exists.

Traditionally, private marks were set by negotiated funding rounds, then investment banks established an IPO range after access to company data and investor feedback. Most traders entered only after the first public print.

ANTH changes the order.

A continuous onchain market is publishing an implied Anthropic valuation before the public filing, roadshow, allocation process, and exchange open. That does not make the onchain price correct. It makes the expectation visible.

Markets saw the same structural shift with SpaceX pre-IPO trading, but ANTH removes one major layer of estimation. SPCX was quoted as an expected share price, which required assumptions about the final share count. ANTH is quoted directly in billions of implied company value. Markets

The non-obvious signal is not whether $1.95T is the perfect number. It is that traders are willing to price Anthropic at roughly twice its latest private valuation before receiving the disclosures that normally justify that decision.

Scarcity has become a live price.

What traders should watch next

The public S-1: Revenue composition, gross margin, compute costs, customer concentration, cash flow, governance, litigation, and diluted share count will determine how much of the private narrative survives public disclosure.
The official valuation range: The cleanest signal will be the gap between ANTH and the equity valuation implied by the IPO price.
Primary versus secondary shares: A large primary raise funds Anthropic. A large secondary component gives existing holders liquidity. The market can price those structures differently.
Lockups and future supply: Longer lockups can reduce immediate selling pressure, while employee and investor liquidity can create a larger future overhang.
ANTH liquidity and funding: Price matters, but so do market depth, open interest, funding, and the ability to exit without moving the book.
Listing and settlement mechanics: Traders should review the live contract rules as the IPO approaches. A cash-settled derivative does not convert into Anthropic shares.

The bottom line

ANTH is not a cheap backdoor into Anthropic equity.

It is a live, leveraged market on the valuation public investors may assign to the company. Near $1.95T, it already assumes a successful listing, continued extreme growth, and public-market acceptance of a valuation roughly twice the latest private round.

The core question is no longer whether Anthropic can reach public markets.

It is whether public investors will accept the number the onchain market has already moved toward.

The prospectus will provide the numbers. The IPO will provide the official price.

But the valuation trade has already started.

How to trade ANTH on Markets

ANTH-USDC is available on Markets as a USDC-margined pre-IPO valuation perpetual.

Open the ANTH market and connect or fund your account.
Select your direction, position size, and the leverage available in the live order ticket.
Review the order, funding, margin requirement, and estimated liquidation price before confirming.

ANTH-USDC provides directional exposure to Anthropic’s implied valuation. It does not provide Anthropic shares, an IPO allocation, dividends, voting rights, or ownership. Leverage magnifies both gains and losses and can result in liquidation. Availability depends on jurisdiction.

Close-up of the Markets ANTH-USDC order panel

FAQ

Where can I trade Anthropic before the IPO?

You can trade ANTH-USDC directly on Markets from desktop.

On mobile, use the Markets app.

When is the Anthropic IPO expected?

Anthropic confidentially submitted a draft S-1 on June 1, 2026. Reuters reported that the company could publish its prospectus after Labor Day and potentially list in late September or early October, but Anthropic has not confirmed a final date. Anthropic

What does the ANTH price represent?

ANTH is quoted in billions of dollars of implied company valuation. A price of 1,955 represents an Anthropic valuation of approximately $1.955T. It is not an expected per-share IPO price. DefiLlama

Is ANTH-USDC Anthropic stock?

No.

ANTH-USDC is a cash-settled pre-IPO perpetual. It does not provide shares, voting rights, dividends, shareholder claims, or participation in Anthropic’s IPO.

Why can ANTH trade above Anthropic’s last private valuation?

The contract prices current expectations, while the $965B figure comes from Anthropic’s May funding round. Traders may expect stronger growth, a higher IPO valuation, or heavy opening demand. Limited liquidity and the absence of direct arbitrage can also push the contract away from private-market marks.

What happens to ANTH when Anthropic lists?

The venue’s listing and settlement rules will govern the transition. Traders should review the live contract specifications before the IPO. The derivative does not automatically convert into Anthropic shares.

Sources

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Derivatives can involve leverage, liquidation, and total-loss risk.