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

Written by: Cooper Duschang

Translated by: Choper, Foresight News

Anthropic is one of the most anticipated IPO targets of 2026, with market trading expectations that its valuation will exceed $2.1 trillion. In the past, it has been difficult for regular investors to access the performance and valuation of private companies, as only qualified investors and institutional capital had opportunities to participate, while most investors could only wait until the company went public to trade its stock.

Perpetual contracts do not require the delivery of the underlying asset, so the exchange does not need to hold Anthropic stock to establish a corresponding trading market. This has led to several exchanges launching pre-IPO perpetual contracts for Anthropic, allowing 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 the top five exchanges ranked by open interest.

Although a total of 12 platforms have launched Anthropic's pre-IPO trading market, traders have been continuously flocking to one of them: Entropy. Entropy is the HIP-3 ecosystem exchange of Hyperliquid, which launched the Anthropic perpetual contract on August 19. Since its launch, the trading volume of the Anthropic market on Entropy has ranked in the top 15% of the Hyperliquid platform, demonstrating the strong 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 for market deployment, increases simulated aggregated order book depth, and competes with exchanges that adopt low or zero funding rate models.

Entropy's Rise as a HIP-3

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

The 5 exchanges that launched the Anthropic IPO pre-perpetual contract, data source: Talos CM Market Data Pro

Other HIP-3 builders have also launched pre-IPO markets for price discovery prior to formal company listings. These exchanges rely on internal order books for pricing pre-IPO targets, while Entropy, in addition to using its order book to generate prices, has also introduced 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 discrepancies in the Anthropic IPO pre-perpetual contract compared to centralized exchanges, data source: Talos CM Market Data Pro

Price discrepancies between different exchanges create arbitrage opportunities across platforms. This type of pre-IPO target market inherently carries strong speculative characteristics, lacking public valuation references, but traders can profit from price differences between platforms. Currently, there is a 2.47% price discrepancy between centralized exchanges and Entropy.

The Timing Game of HIP-3 Builders

Newly launched pre-IPO target markets on Hyperliquid benefit from first-mover advantages, allowing them to capture initial market enthusiasm, earn transaction fees, and recover market deployment costs. However, if the launch timing is too early and market attention is insufficient, issues such as low trading volumes, increased slippage, and rising funding rates may occur.

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

Entropy, like Binance, Bitget, Gate.io, and other centralized exchanges, uses an implied total enterprise valuation approach to price Anthropic pre-IPO contracts. This pricing model temporarily excludes projects like Trade.xyz from entry, as Trade.xyz prices private companies based on expected stock prices. Until Anthropic submits its public S-1 filing and discloses more share information, Trade.xyz cannot enter. OKX also faces similar difficulties, as its pre-IPO market pricing assumptions are based on a total issuance of 10 billion shares valued at a per-share price.

Volume changes for Anthropic perpetual contracts across 5 exchanges, data source: Talos CM Market Data Pro

Currently, no other HIP-3 builders have launched Anthropic perpetual contracts, preventing 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 (10.22 million dollars) in the past two weeks and first in open interest (30.63 million dollars).

Entropy's Order Book Depth and Slippage

Traders select markets that offer the smallest spreads, 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 midpoint price.

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

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

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

In the past two weeks, Entropy's average buy-sell spread was only 1.5 basis points, on par with major centralized exchanges, and is the narrowest among all platforms.

Funding Rates Determine Traders' Platform Choices

Perpetual contracts rely on funding rates to ensure that perpetual contract prices do not deviate significantly from spot prices. However, as companies are not yet public, there are no spots, 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 determined by 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 order book prices.

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

Hyperliquid adopts an hourly dynamic reset funding rate, while Binance fixes it at 0.005% every 8 hours, and Bitget and Gate.io charge almost no funding rates. Recent discussions around risks in the AI industry have led to surges in Entropy's funding rates, and the funding rate mechanism means that holders must bear costs, prompting traders to rationally price the valuation of Anthropic's IPO. However, when valuation expectations fluctuate sharply, the cost of long positions will increase, causing traders to shift to exchanges with lower funding rates.

Conclusion

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

With the subsequent disclosure of Anthropic's public offering documents, it is expected that more HIP-3 builders will enter the competition for trading volume related to Anthropic's IPO. More market launches will challenge Entropy's existing market share while resulting in fragmentation of market liquidity.