Anthropic’s $1.5T IPO may trigger rotation out of crypto and tech stocks, hedge fund says

Anthropic’s anticipated $1.5 trillion initial public offering could temporarily draw capital away from cryptocurrencies and high growth technology stocks as investors raise funds to participate in the listing, according to hedge fund Moon Pursuit Capital.

Courtney Olujobi, a principal at the firm, told Crypto Briefing that an IPO of this size could prompt institutional investors to rebalance their portfolios, creating short term pressure on speculative assets.

However, she said the offering would not necessarily lead to a lasting reduction in crypto market liquidity. A successful listing could attract fresh institutional allocations and strengthen confidence in the broader artificial intelligence investment cycle.

“The distinction is whether the IPO represents a redistribution of existing capital or an expansion of overall risk appetite,” Olujobi said.

The comments follow Anthropic’s IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, ahead of an anticipated November listing.

Investors at a recent Anthropic event in San Francisco reportedly discussed a valuation of approximately $1.5 trillion, down from earlier expectations of roughly $2 trillion. The company has not formally established its IPO valuation.

Olujobi said the potential impact on cryptocurrency markets would ultimately depend on broader liquidity conditions, interest rates and whether the listing attracts new capital or redirects existing investments.

Anthropic’s $1.5T valuation raises profitability questions

Utkarsh Ahuja, founder and managing partner of Moon Pursuit Capital, warned that Anthropic’s proposed valuation assumes the company will become one of the foundational technology platforms of the global economy.

That outcome would require sustained revenue expansion, stronger pricing power and substantial improvements in profit margins, he said.

“You can be absolutely right about the future of a technology and still overpay for the investment,” Ahuja told Crypto Briefing.

Anthropic reported $16.3 billion in revenue during the first half of 2026, reflecting rapid demand growth for its Claude AI models.

However, the company also disclosed a net loss of $80.7 billion, compared with an operating loss of $693 million.

Ahuja cautioned that the headline loss overstates Anthropic’s underlying operating challenges because most of it reflects noncash financing adjustments.

Approximately $72 billion of the loss came from an accounting charge tied to increases in the estimated value of convertible financing instruments.

Still, Ahuja said Anthropic faces significant pressure to demonstrate that its revenue growth can translate into sustainable profits.

Competition among frontier AI developers and falling model inference costs could limit pricing power, making it harder to justify aggressive valuation assumptions.

Anthropic’s compute spending approaches $9B in six months

Anthropic spent nearly $9 billion on computing capacity and infrastructure during the first half of 2026, up from approximately $2.3 billion a year earlier.

The company also disclosed infrastructure commitments exceeding $600 billion, with additional agreements under negotiation that could add as much as $150 billion.

Ahuja said technological improvements should reduce the cost of individual AI workloads, but rising demand and increasingly complex models could keep total infrastructure spending elevated.

He identified the relationship between revenue growth and computing expenses as a critical measure of Anthropic’s progress toward profitability.

The company will need to show that additional revenue produces improving margins rather than requiring proportionate increases in spending.

Ahuja expects meaningful progress toward sustained operating profitability over the next two to three years, although positive free cash flow could take longer because of the company’s infrastructure commitments.

Investors need evidence that growth “is becoming increasingly profitable, not simply more expensive,” he said.

AI IPO could reshape institutional allocations across technology

Olujobi said Anthropic’s public debut could also change how institutional investors allocate capital across the AI industry.

Until now, much of the publicly traded exposure to artificial intelligence has come through semiconductor manufacturers, cloud computing providers and data center infrastructure companies.

A publicly listed frontier model developer would provide more direct exposure to AI software economics, including model performance, enterprise subscriptions and customer retention.

However, Olujobi noted that model developers face different competitive pressures from infrastructure providers, which can benefit from computing demand across multiple AI companies.

She expects institutions to become more selective as rising borrowing costs increase pressure on companies to demonstrate returns on invested capital.

AI infrastructure requires substantial upfront spending, while the associated revenue and productivity benefits can take years to materialize.

According to Olujobi, investors are increasingly shifting from rewarding companies simply for expanding AI infrastructure to evaluating whether those investments generate sustainable returns.

For cryptocurrencies, the implications remain uncertain.

A successful Anthropic listing could encourage broader appetite for risk assets, while concerns about excessive AI valuations could prompt investors to reassess richly valued technology stocks and speculative investments.

Olujobi said the direction of capital flows would depend on whether the IPO expands overall investor demand or simply redirects money already circulating through technology and crypto markets.