Anthropic Pre-IPO Market Heats Up, Entropy Reshapes CEX Liquidity Landscape

Hyperliquid ecosystem Entropy secures the highest open interest in the Anthropic pre-IPO market.

Written by: Cooper Duschang

Compiled by: Choper, Foresight News

Anthropic is one of the most anticipated IPOs of 2026, with market trading expectations that its valuation will exceed $2.1 trillion. In the past, it has been difficult for ordinary investors to access the performance and valuation of unlisted companies; only qualified investors and institutional capital had the opportunity to participate, while most investors could only wait until the company went public to trade its shares.

Perpetual contracts do not require the delivery of the underlying asset, allowing exchanges to create corresponding trading markets without holding Anthropic shares. This has led to multiple exchanges launching Anthropic's pre-IPO perpetual contracts, enabling traders to bet on Anthropic's valuation. Currently, there are 12 exchanges offering Anthropic pre-IPO contract markets, with 6 platforms having open interest exceeding $1 million. This article will focus on showcasing the top five exchanges by open interest.

Although a total of 12 platforms have launched pre-IPO trading markets for Anthropic, traders have recently flocked to one exchange: Entropy. Entropy is a HIP-3 ecosystem exchange of Hyperliquid, which launched the Anthropic perpetual contract on August 19. Since its launch, Entropy's Anthropic market trading volume has ranked in the top 15% of the Hyperliquid platform, indicating strong market interest in the Anthropic IPO.

This article will break down how Entropy's Anthropic pre-IPO perpetual contract market competes with other HIP-3 builders in market deployment, enhances simulated aggregated order book depth, and competes with exchanges that adopt low or zero funding rate models.

Entropy's Rise as a HIP-3 Builder

The HIP-3 building mechanism rules of Hyperliquid state that staking 500,000 HYPE (approximately $40 million) allows for the free launch of 3 perpetual contract markets; if more trading markets are needed, participation in a Dutch auction is required, with a starting bid of 500 HYPE (approximately $40,000). Among the first three markets launched by Entropy is the pre-IPO perpetual contract for Anthropic.

Five exchanges that launched Anthropic pre-IPO perpetual contracts, data source: Talos CM Market Data Pro

Other HIP-3 builders have also launched pre-IPO markets for price discovery before companies officially go public. These exchanges rely on internal order books to price pre-IPO assets, while Entropy, in addition to generating prices from the order book, also introduces external market data sources as pricing references. Multiple price inputs are expected to achieve higher pricing accuracy compared to competitors, helping Entropy capture more market share among HIP-3 builders.

Price differences exist between centralized exchanges and Entropy for Anthropic IPO pre-perpetual contracts, data source: Talos CM Market Data Pro

Price differences between exchanges create cross-platform arbitrage opportunities. The pre-IPO market itself carries strong speculative attributes, lacking public valuation references, but traders can profit from price differences between platforms. Currently, there is a 2.47% price difference between centralized exchanges and Entropy.

Time Game of HIP-3 Builders

Launching a pre-IPO asset market on Hyperliquid has first-mover advantages, allowing for the capture of initial market heat, earning transaction fees, and recovering market deployment costs. However, if the launch timing is too early and market attention is insufficient, issues such as low trading volume, increased slippage, and rising funding rates may arise.

Timeline of the HIP-3 market for Anthropic IPO pre-perpetual contracts, data source: Talos CM Market Data Pro

Like Binance, Bitget, and Gate.io, Entropy uses an implied total enterprise valuation method to price Anthropic's pre-IPO contracts. This pricing method temporarily keeps projects like Trade.xyz, which prices unlisted companies based on expected share prices, out of the door. Until Anthropic submits its public S1 filing and discloses more share sale information, Trade.xyz cannot enter the market. OKX also faces similar challenges, as its pre-IPO market pricing assumes a total issuance of 10 billion shares, valuing based on share price.

Changes in trading volume of Anthropic perpetual contracts across five exchanges, data source: Talos CM Market Data Pro

Currently, no other HIP-3 builders have launched Anthropic perpetual contracts, avoiding liquidity fragmentation. Although Entropy launched more than two and a half months later than Binance and Bitget, its Anthropic perpetual contract market has ranked second in average daily trading volume over the past two weeks ($10.22 million) and first in open interest ($30.63 million).

Entropy's Order Book Depth and Slippage

Traders will choose markets with the smallest price differences, optimal order book depth, or lowest funding rates to route orders, thereby enhancing liquidity and reducing trading costs. Merged order book simulation results show that Entropy has sufficient liquidity around the mid-price.

Merged order book for Anthropic pre-IPO perpetual contracts, data source: Talos CM Market Data Pro

Comparing the average merged order book depth over 72 hours, within a 0.5% range around the mid-price, Entropy's liquidity scale is approximately equal to 17% of the combined total of Binance, Gate.io, and Bitget. The order book displayed by Hyperliquid has sufficient liquidity within the mid-price ±1% range, with thick bid-ask spreads, capable of reducing price impacts when traders buy and sell pre-IPO contracts.

Bid-ask spread for Anthropic pre-IPO perpetual contracts, data source: Talos CM Market Data Pro

Over the past two weeks, Entropy's average bid-ask spread has been only 1.5 basis points, on par with major centralized exchanges, making it the platform with the smallest spread.

Funding Rate Determines Traders' Platform Choices

Perpetual contracts rely on funding rates to ensure that perpetual contract prices do not deviate significantly from spot prices. However, since the company is not yet public, there is no spot market; how should exchanges charge funding rates? The pre-IPO market launched by HIP-3 builders can calculate funding rates without a spot benchmark. Entropy's funding rate is calculated based on the imbalance between the perpetual contract price and the oracle price; the oracle price is generated from a combination of external/private market data sources and endogenous prices from the order book.

Funding rates for Anthropic pre-IPO perpetual contracts, data source: Talos CM Market Data Pro

Hyperliquid adopts hourly dynamic funding rate resets, while Binance fixes it at 0.005% every 8 hours, and Bitget and Gate.io charge almost no funding rates. Recent discussions related to risks in the AI industry have caused Entropy's funding rates to soar; the funding rate mechanism means that holders need to bear costs, prompting traders to rationally price Anthropic's IPO valuation. However, when valuation expectations fluctuate sharply, the long-term holding costs will increase, and traders will turn to exchanges with lower funding rates.

Conclusion

The Anthropic pre-IPO trading market is the latest case of perpetual contracts for everything, as traders begin to speculate on the valuations of unlisted companies. Entropy's rapid rise and securing the highest open interest indicate that traders are more willing to use Hyperliquid infrastructure to trade pre-IPO perpetual contracts, rather than being limited to centralized exchanges.

As Anthropic subsequently discloses its public offering documents, it is expected that more HIP-3 builders will enter the fray to compete for trading volume related to the Anthropic IPO. More market launches will challenge Entropy's existing market share while causing liquidity fragmentation.