Anthropic contract jumps to $1,980 after company files IPO paperwork
Key Facts
The Anthropic-linked perpetual contract jumped to about $1,980 around the time the company filed its registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on October 26, 2026, before falling about 6% within minutes to roughly $1,857, according to CoinDesk. Trading volume in the contract totaled about $12 million over 24 hours. The move reflects a rapid response to the company's IPO filing, but does not mean its actual shares are trading. The contract is a cash-settled derivative that offers hypothetical price exposure and does not transfer ownership in Anthropic. Available information also does not establish that the contract price represents a direct valuation of the company.
Anthropic filed a Form S-1 registration statement with the SEC on October 26, and it was accepted the same day at 09:00:11 UTC, according to the SEC's records. The filing marks a formal step toward the proposed offering, after the company's Class A shares had no public trading market, according to the registration statement. The company said it had applied to list the shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “ANT.” Filing the application does not make the shares immediately available for public trading, as the proposed listing and offering remain subject to procedures. The move places activity in the derivative contract in the context of a real event in the company's path to market, rather than trading on expectations detached from offering documents.
The Associated Press said the filing sets the stage for the company to appear on Wall Street the following month, but noted that the amount Anthropic would raise, its final valuation and the offering price had not been determined. Key elements of the offering therefore remained open when the papers were filed, even as the company identified its proposed listing venue and symbol. The news agency said Anthropic's offering could precede OpenAI's IPO. That puts the timing of the offering in competition between two prominent companies in artificial intelligence, according to the agency. The projected market debut cited by the agency is an expectation for the following month, not a final listing date announced in the available facts.
The financial figures cited in the Associated Press report show rapid revenue growth alongside large losses. Anthropic's revenue topped $16 billion in the first half of 2026, equivalent to 14 times revenue in the same period a year earlier, according to the agency. In the same period of 2025, the company recorded a loss of $13 billion, before posting a net loss of $80.7 billion in the first half of 2026. The agency attributed much of the 2026 loss to a one-time accounting charge of $72.4 billion related to financing agreements. The company's picture as it moves toward an offering therefore extends beyond revenue growth: it also includes a large reported loss, although a significant portion stems from a one-time exceptional item, according to the report.
Earlier, similar pre-IPO contracts illustrate some features and risks of these products, without providing evidence about the terms of the Anthropic contract involved in the market move or its connection to the NEAR system. Kraken announced an earlier Anthropic pre-IPO perpetual contract on June 15, 2026, saying it was cash-settled, had no expiration date and offered leverage of up to 5 times. The platform warned that early markets could have low liquidity and wider spreads than mature contracts. These constraints matter when considering the contract move reported by CoinDesk, whose figures showed a jump followed by a rapid decline within minutes. But they do not establish the cause of the move or determine the liquidity of any specific contract. The cash-settled contracts described in Kraken's announcement also do not give holders actual shares in the company.
Available facts indicate that the Anthropic development combines the start of an offering process documented with the SEC and trading in a derivative responding to company news, while the offering terms and final timing remain unresolved. The contract recorded about $12 million in trading over 24 hours, but its volume alone does not settle Anthropic's value or the price at which its shares will be offered. The revenue and loss figures reported for the first half of 2026 remain part of the financial context ahead of the offering, including the impact of the one-time accounting charge. In the near term, the Associated Press projected the company's market debut in the month after the October 26 filing. The agency did not specify the offering amount, final valuation or price, while Anthropic said it had applied to list under the symbol “ANT.”