Pre-IPO futures imply 30% pop for Anthropic's market debut

Traders in offshore perpetual futures markets are betting that Anthropic’s stock will pop more than 30% on its first day of trading, CNBC reported.

Pre-IPO perpetuals are contracts that track the price of private companies and trade on decentralized crypto exchanges like Hyperliquid, Coinbase, Binance and OKX. The current Hyperliquid Anthropic contract implies a stock price of $98 and a market cap of roughly $1.7 trillion, which is more than 30% above the $70 to $78 range Anthropic set in its updated S-1 filing, according to CNBC’s options coverage.

About $250 million in volume traded across Hyperliquid’s two Anthropic trackers in the past 24 hours, according to the exchange. The trading is not available to American investors, but the volume is large enough that the implied price is a meaningful signal about market expectations for the IPO.

The SpaceX precedent

The case for trusting the perpetual futures market comes from SpaceX. Pre-IPO perps on SpaceX traded at a premium to the expected IPO price, and the perps converged with the equity price at the IPO. Shares then went on a three-day rally of as much as 40% in the immediate aftermath of the listing. The perps predicted the pop, and the pop happened.

The SpaceX precedent is one data point, and one data point does not establish a pattern. But the mechanism is plausible. Bankers intentionally underprice IPOs to ensure a first-day pop, because a pop generates positive press, rewards the investors who were allocated shares, and creates a favorable impression for future offerings. The underpricing is a known feature of the IPO market, and the perpetual futures market is a way to bet on how large the underpricing is.

If the Anthropic perps are right, the underpricing is significant. A $98 implied price against a $70 to $78 range means the bankers are leaving roughly $20 per share on the table, which is a large amount of money for a company that is expected to raise billions. The underpricing benefits the institutional investors who are allocated shares at the IPO price, because they get an immediate paper gain. It costs the company, because it raises less capital than it could have at a higher price.

The trading history of the Anthropic perp

Hyperliquid’s pre-IPO Anthropic perp began trading two weeks ago at $138, according to CNBC. The contract settled into a range between $110 and $120 before last week’s selloff in tech stocks, and it slipped below $94 at one point. The current implied price of $98 is a recovery from the lows but well below the initial trading level.

The trading history shows that the perp is volatile and that it is correlated with the broader tech market. The selloff in tech stocks last week dragged the Anthropic contract lower, and the recovery in the contract has been partial. The perp is not a pure bet on Anthropic’s fundamentals; it is a bet that is influenced by market sentiment toward tech stocks generally.

The volatility is a feature of the asset class, not a bug. Pre-IPO perps are a new and largely unregulated market, and the prices are set by a small number of traders who are willing to bet on private company valuations. The prices can move quickly on small amounts of volume, and the implied valuations should be treated as directional signals rather than precise predictions.

The OpenAI signal

The perpetual futures market is also providing a signal on OpenAI. Perps tracking OpenAI’s market cap dropped 7% to $1.27 trillion, according to Hyperliquid, with $2.8 billion in volume over the past 24 hours. The drop suggests that traders see Anthropic’s IPO as a competitive threat to OpenAI, and that the public market debut of one AI company could draw capital away from the other.

The OpenAI perp trading at $1.27 trillion is a reminder of the scale of the AI market. Two private companies, Anthropic and OpenAI, are both valued at more than $1 trillion in the perpetual futures market, and both are expected to go public within the next year. The public market capitalization of the AI sector is going to increase dramatically when these companies list, and the perps are providing a preview of what those valuations will look like.

Hyperliquid Strategies, the publicly traded company that invests in the HYPE tokens powering the exchange, fell 4% on Tuesday but is up 150% on the year. The stock is a way for public market investors to get exposure to the perpetual futures market, and its performance reflects the growth of the asset class. The 150% year-to-date gain is a signal that the market for pre-IPO perps is expanding rapidly, and that the trading volume is generating real revenue for the exchanges that host it.

What I think

The perpetual futures market is a useful signal, but it is not a crystal ball. The Anthropic perp implies a $98 stock price, which would be a 30% pop from the top of the IPO range. That is a large pop, and it is consistent with the SpaceX precedent, but the SpaceX sample size is one. The perp could be right, or it could be reflecting the optimism of a small group of traders who are willing to bet on a private company’s debut. The volume is large, but the number of participants is unknown, and the market is unregulated.

The underpricing thesis is sound. Bankers have an incentive to underprice IPOs, and the Anthropic offering is a high-profile deal where a first-day pop would generate positive coverage and reward the institutional investors who are allocated shares. The $70 to $78 range may be intentionally conservative, and the perp market is calling the conservatism out. If the stock opens at $98, the bankers will have left roughly $20 per share on the table, which is a significant transfer of value from the company to the allocated investors.

The OpenAI signal is the most interesting part of the story. The 7% drop in the OpenAI perp suggests that traders see Anthropic and OpenAI as substitutes, and that the public market debut of one will draw capital away from the other. That is a reasonable view, because both companies are selling AI models and API access to the same customer base, and the public market investors who want AI exposure may not want to own both. The competitive dynamic between the two companies is going to be a major theme in the public markets, and the perps are providing an early read on how that dynamic is being priced.

The regulatory question is the elephant in the room. Pre-IPO perps are not available to American investors, and the reason is that they are unregulated derivatives that track private company valuations. The SEC has not commented on the asset class, and it is possible that the regulators will take action to restrict or shut down the trading if it becomes large enough to attract attention. The market is providing a useful price discovery function, but it is doing so outside the regulatory framework that governs public market trading, and that is a risk that participants should be aware of.

The Anthropic IPO is going to be a major event for the AI sector and for the public markets. The perps are saying it will be a big pop, and the SpaceX precedent supports that view. But the perps are a new and volatile market, and the implied price should be treated as one data point among many. The IPO will set the price, and the market will tell us whether the perps were right.