Will OpenAI or Anthropic IPO first?

• Kalshi prices NO shares at 87% while Yes trades at 13%.
• This market has recorded $164.3K in trading volume, with $238 traded in the past 24 hours.
• Liquidity currently stands at $0, representing the available capital across the market.
• The market will resolve on January 1, 2040

Overview

In the market “Will OpenAI or Anthropic IPO first?”Anthropic seems the clear winner, according to Kalshi traders, by a huge margin (~87% to 13% for OpenAI). The market simply asks traders to pick which of the two AI companies will go public first. The resolution date for this market is in 2040, but the recent AI boom could see either of the two companies launch to the public way sooner. 

As of August 13, the Anthropic side trades at 94 cents and the OpenAI side at 12 cents, down 1 and 3 points, respectively, on the day. Kalshi’s event page shows the market has attracted over $336,487 in lifetime volume.

Anthropic Leading The Way On Public Listing

Claude’s developer company, Anthropic, submitted its first S-1 draft to the SEC for an IPO on June 1, becoming the first of the two big AI companies to move towards public listing. Seven days later, ChatGPT’s creator, OpenAI, filed its own S-1 draft, showing that either could lead this contract’s race. 

Anthropic’s filing saw its Yes share blow up from 29% to 77% in a day, and the subsequent weeks have continued to strengthen its positioning. A month and a half later, CNBC announced that Anthropic had started scheduling meetings between management and prospective investors, such as JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. Reporting points at a Nasdaq listing as early as October, priced off the $965 billion post-money valuation set by the $65 billion Series H that closed in late May.

Despite the positive meetings and the SEC filing, Kalshi traders still hold on to pricing the market even higher, given the recent objections from investors who are looking at cheaper Chinese models and resistance to building new data centers. 

Sam Altman Insists on $1-Trillion Valuation

SpaceX launching at a $1 trillion+ valuation could have been a key factor in OpenAI’s insistence on a lower valuation. According to a New York Times article, Sam Altman may choose to wait till 2027 to be able to get the desired valuation, and traders are pricing this clearly: a 13-cent price for OpenAI listing after  Anthropic. According to Mr. Altman, a discount of its share price is a “non-starter’ and he’d rather wait till next year. 

The financials do not argue for hurrying. OpenAI posted a $20.9 billion operating loss in 2025, and late-July price cuts on GPT-5.6 landed weeks after launch, with DeepSeek and Kimi K3 undercutting it. CoinGape reported on August 12 that longtime executive Brad Lightcap is leaving, adding to a run of senior departures ahead of any debut. The OpenAI leg is down 3 points over the past 24 hours.

How Does Crypto React?

As with previous large IPOs, crypto’s and Bitcoin’s risk is not the technology itself but liquidity. Following SpaceX’s IPO in June, the US spot Bitcoin ETFs posted a record $4.5 billion of monthly outflows, and higher-beta altcoins took more damage than BTC. Capital rotated out of crypto into SpaceX, but given the macro standing at the time was also poor, we can’t blame the liquidity drain fully on the IPO. 

An Anthropic deal raising $60 billion or more in October would be the next read on that. Bitcoin closed August 12 at $63,402, down 0.24%, with a soft July CPI print doing little for it.