Anthropic tokenized pre-IPO volume hits $643M, but liquidity test looms

Anthropic’s planned IPO could force a fast-growing crypto derivatives market to reconcile its synthetic valuation with Wall Street’s actual price.Pre-IPO perpetual contracts linked to the artificial-intelligence company generated $643 million in trading across 12 crypto venues through Sept. 21, already exceeding the $590 million recorded in all of August, according to Binance Research.About $80 million of Anthropic-linked open interest was outstanding at the September snapshot. On Binance alone, open interest rose 88% over 30 days to $31.2 million from $16.6 million.The growth has taken place without publicly traded Anthropic shares anchoring the market.Instead, traders are buying and selling cash-settled contracts whose prices reflect a crypto market estimate of Anthropic's value. That arrangement becomes more consequential once a stock listing introduces an external price that could differ sharply from the valuation implied by the derivatives.Anthropic announced a confidential draft IPO filing in June, though reports this week suggested the debut may slip beyond the November US midterm elections.That leaves traders building positions in a market whose eventual reference point has...