Pre-IPO perpetual futures tracking Anthropic slid about 7% in 24 hours, days after the AI company filed its S-1 with the SEC
Anthropic finally put its paperwork where its valuation is. The AI company filed an S-1 registration statement with the SEC on October 26, 2026, formally starting its path to a public listing.
Traders betting on that listing celebrated by selling. Anthropic perpetual futures fell about 7% in 24 hours, days after the filing landed.
What the filing shows, and what traders did with it
Anthropic’s profile has a striking headline number. The company reported first-half revenue of $16.3 billion.
It also reported a net loss of $80.7 billion. That loss stems primarily from accounting adjustments on convertible notes, not from the day-to-day cost of running the business.
Convertible notes are loans that can turn into equity later. When a company’s value rises sharply, the accounting treatment of those notes can produce enormous paper losses, even if no cash leaves the building.
The filing positions Anthropic for a potential Nasdaq listing under the ticker ANT. That listing could come as early as mid-November 2026, though nothing is locked in until shares actually price.
How Anthropic perps work
The contracts that slid are pre-IPO perpetual futures, offered on various offshore crypto platforms and on Coinbase. A perpetual future is a derivative with no expiry date that tracks the price of something, in this case the expected valuation of a company.
The contracts are cash-settled and carry no equity or voting rights. No actual Anthropic shares are involved at any point.
Coinbase has said the eventual IPO price could differ by around 25% in either direction from current derivative prices.
The numbers behind the bet
Recent trading puts the contracts in the range of $1,500 to $1,900. That range implies a market valuation above Anthropic’s previous private round, which valued the company at $965 billion.
In mid-to-late October 2026, prices across platforms ranged from roughly $1,784 to roughly $1,927. At those levels, the implied valuation sat between $1.7 trillion and $2 trillion.
The pattern has also played out before. When Coinbase’s pre-IPO perpetual contracts on Anthropic opened on June 22, they started at approximately $1,728. Within hours, they had fallen by about 7%, to around $1,628.
Why a filing can push prices down
On paper, an S-1 should reduce uncertainty. Investors finally get audited numbers instead of rumors and leaked funding memos.
But less uncertainty does not always mean higher prices. Before the filing, traders could imagine almost anything about Anthropic’s finances. After the filing, they have to price a specific revenue figure next to a specific loss figure. Even if the loss is mostly accounting, it is now a real number in a public document.
There is also the classic market rhythm of buying the rumor and selling the news. Traders who positioned early for an IPO announcement may simply be taking profits now that the announcement exists.
What this means for traders and the IPO
For anyone holding these contracts, the most important figure may be Coinbase’s own caveat. A possible 25% swing between derivative prices and the IPO price means the perp market is a forecast, not a promise.
That gap cuts both ways. If Anthropic prices its shares below where perps trade, long holders could take a hit as contracts converge toward real-world pricing. If it prices above, shorts face the same problem in reverse.
The implied valuation of $1.7 trillion to $2 trillion also sets a high bar for the actual offering. Bankers and Anthropic will set an IPO price based on institutional demand, not on what offshore derivatives traders were willing to pay in October.
What to watch next is straightforward. Track whether the potential mid-November listing date holds, where the IPO price range lands once it is set, and how far the perps drift from that range in the meantime.
