Countdown to ANT: What the Pre-IPO Perps Markets Say About Anthropic’s IPO

Key Takeaways:

• Traders continue to build exposure to the Anthropic IPO via pre-IPO perpetual futures markets. As of November 10, there is over $260M in open interest across Entropy, TradeXYZ, and OKX futures markets speculating on Anthropic’s valuation.
• Even though OKX and TradeXYZ use a per-share price for Anthropic’s valuation, the number of total shares impacts the markets differently. This can create price discrepancies due to non-uniform settlement rules.
• Anthropic’s average pre-IPO perp valuation is ~$1.4T. Anthropic’s amended S1 filing reports ~18B shares after dilution. The amended S1 sets an expected price range of $70–$78.

Introduction

Anthropic released its public S1 filing on October 26, 2026. With an anticipated IPO next week, speculators are building financial exposure via pre-IPO markets. We previously examined the Hyperliquid HIP-3 builder Entropy registering its own Anthropic pre-IPO market. Hyperliquid perps provided deep liquidity and tight bid-ask spreads which were competitive with centralized exchanges speculating on IPO valuation.

OKX was the only exchange that supported a market that valued Anthropic IPO on a per-share basis until the S1 filing. Other markets used a market-cap valuation method to price the total value of the company. After the S1 filing, both HIP-3 builders Paragon and TradeXYZ support Anthropic pre-IPO markets that value Anthropic using a share price market. In this State of the Network, we examine how the amendment of a definitive share count to Anthropic’s S1 filing impacts the price and valuation of Anthropic on an individual market basis.

Anthropic Implied Valuation

Across pre-IPO markets, investors value Anthropic around $1.4 trillion. The valuation of the firm has crept down from highs over $2T. The valuation continued lower after Anthropic filed its public S1 filing and amended its filing with additional information on share and anticipated IPO price.

Source: Talos CM Market Data Pro, (Entropy, Binance, Bitget, Gate.io markets)

Why Does Share Count Matter?

Most markets supporting the Anthropic pre-IPO use a market-cap based valuation. When Anthropic IPOs, markets convert from a market-cap based valuation to a per-share valuation. This is where markets can support price dislocations due to heterogeneous settlement rules. All markets will converge to the publicly traded ANT share price but the way in which each market reaches that point is not uniform.

XYZ - The Baseline for ANT valuation

Hyperliquid HIP-3 builder TradeXYZ deployed their own Anthropic pre-IPO market the same day Anthropic publicly filed its S1 filing. Since October 26, TradeXYZ has garnered over $65M in open interest, quadrupling OKX’s open interest in less than four days after launch.

Source: Talos CM Market Data Pro

TradeXYZ launched its ANT market at $125 with price discovery bands of +/- 50%. Anthropic is preparing to sell 825M shares at IPO at a share price around $70-$78. As of November 10, TradeXYZ’s ANT price of ~$97 sits 23% above the top of the $70-$78 range.

Source: Talos CM Market Data Pro, SEC S1 filing

TradeXYZ prices each contract as one share of Anthropic Class A common stock. These Class A shares are the same unit that Anthropic is offering to sell in its S1 and the unit that will be quoted by Nasdaq. On conversion from pre-IPO perp to standard equity perp, the per-share denominator is Class A common stock only. No options, RSUs, or other classes are added, so this is the narrowest denominator of any venue. That makes TradeXYZ the baseline other pre-IPO markets are measured against.

OKX Market Structure

OKX deployed a price-per-share valuation market for Anthropic in May 2026. OKX initially used a share count of 1B for the price per share. A $1500 price per share implied a valuation of $1.5T. On June 30, OKX conducted a rebase to better estimate the anticipated share count, increasing the number of shares from 1B to 10B. This maintained trader positions and reduced the contract price to 1/10th of its original price.

OKX will conduct another rebase to accurately represent the number of common shares outstanding. When rebasing, OKX realizes PnL for existing positions and reopens them after rebasing.

Source: Talos CM Market Data Pro, OKX

OKX settles using the count of common shares outstanding immediately after the IPO. This includes Class A plus Class N common stock but excluding unexercised options and unsettled RSUs. From the S1 amendment, this is ~15.2B shares. That is larger than TradeXYZ’s Class A-only denominator. The per-share settlement value is expected to fall and converge down to the TradeXYZ baseline.

Entropy’s Persistent Popularity

The HIP-3 builder Entropy uses a market-cap based valuation model for Anthropic. Entropy launched its pre-IPO perp market in August. There is now more than $175M in open interest on Entropy.

Source: Talos CM Market Data Pro, SEC S1 filing

Entropy settles its converted equity perp as equity valuation / fully diluted share count of Class A, Class N, unexercised options, and unsettled RSUs. Spreading a similar valuation across the most shares, Entropy trades at a discount relative to other venues, pricing in maximum dilution. Traders on Entropy expect an IPO pop of ~20%.

How Have ANT Perps Moved During pre-IPO?

Anthropic pre-IPO trades at a Beta lower than 1 (0.72) relative to the QQQ index, indicating that it is less sensitive to larger market movements related to the technology industry. This may reflect uncertainty about how events impact Anthropic’s stock value. Anthropic however is more sensitive to movements in relation to the S&P 500 with a Beta of 1.15.

Source: Talos CM Market Data Pro, Yahoo Finance

SpaceX pre-IPO markets experienced similar activity with a Beta lower than 1 relative to the QQQ and S&P indices. Pre-IPO, SPCX had Betas of 0.22 and 0.45 relative to the QQQ and S&P respectively. After the IPO, SPCX Betas jumped to 1.43 and 1.97 respectively. In SpaceX’s case, sensitivity to broader market moves increased once the stock was publicly traded.

Are Perps Good Price Discovery Mechanism?

SpaceX’s IPO offer price was $135 while the perpetuals traded ~$176. Even with the first trading day pop, perpetuals overestimated the price ~17% above the open. The price of the perp contracts converged to the SPCX share price. Despite overestimating the jump, pre-IPO markets enabled traders to access the price pop that usually occurs with IPOs.

Source: Talos CM Market Data Pro, Yahoo Finance

A week after SpaceX’s IPO, SPCX perpetuals traded within 2% of the underlying SPCX stock during open market hours. Perp markets quickly converged to the underlying SPCX price after the IPO.

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