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As of May 22, 2026, the prediction platform Polymarket's contract on "When will OpenAI go public" has become a popular prediction topic, with total trading volume exceeding $1.5 million. Market funds show a significant preference for the Q4 window: the probability of going public before September 30 is 41%, while the probability before December 31 rises to 71%.

This expectation is not unfounded. In mid-May, SpaceX officially filed its IPO prospectus, targeting a market value of approximately $1.75 trillion, greatly catalyzing market expectations for the AI giant’s listing timeline. On the same day, multiple media outlets disclosed that OpenAI is working with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, with plans to secretly submit a draft IPO filing to the SEC as early as May 22, aiming to be ready for listing by September 2026. Although no official SEC announcement has been made at the time of writing, the involvement of investment banks has signaled substantial progress to the market.

The prediction market generally believes that the probability of listing in Q4 2026 is high. CNBC cited data from the Kalshi platform showing that traders believe there is a 92% chance OpenAI will submit an IPO application within this year. This data strongly aligns with Polymarket’s end-of-year expectations.

Forced IPO: Capital Logic and Cash Flow Pressure in the AI Arms Race

OpenAI’s urge to go public stems from its enormous capital expenditures exceeding the private equity market’s capacity. According to court testimony from co-founder and President Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s IPO is not primarily about cashing out after maturity, but because the capital costs of AI training and inference are too high, and the private market is no longer sufficient, ultimately requiring the public market to step in.

Financial data confirms this judgment. In Q1 2026, OpenAI achieved approximately $5.7 billion in revenue, but its adjusted operating profit margin was only -122%, meaning it loses $1.22 for every dollar of revenue generated. In the first half of 2025, the company’s net loss reached as high as $13.5 billion, with R&D costs being the main expenditure, totaling $6.7 billion, mainly for developing new AI models and running infrastructure such as servers for ChatGPT.

In terms of cash burn rate, the company has raised over $180 billion in total funding. OpenAI’s monthly revenue has climbed to $2 billion, with growth at four times the rate of Alphabet and Meta during the same period. However, this rapid growth comes with higher capital consumption—ongoing investments in server expansion, large model iteration, and enterprise infrastructure mean diminishing marginal returns from private funding, making the public market the only viable capital outlet.

From Non-Profit to Profit: OpenAI’s Governance Transformation and IPO Qualification Game

The institutional cost of transforming OpenAI from a non-profit laboratory into a profit-driven enterprise constitutes its most unique structural obstacle on the IPO road. Since starting as a non-profit organization in 2015, OpenAI’s governance has been dominated by a non-profit board, with the main beneficiaries defined as "all humanity" rather than investors.

To meet the regulatory requirements of public markets like NASDAQ, OpenAI has internally discussed major restructuring plans. Reports indicate that the company is considering adopting a profit-oriented holding company structure similar to Alphabet (Google’s parent company), planning to spin off its robotics and hardware divisions into independent businesses to streamline the IPO process for its core AI operations.

In terms of equity governance, a leaked shareholder structure shows Microsoft holds about 26.79%, the OpenAI Foundation 25.8%, SoftBank approximately 11.66%, and current and former employees collectively about 20%. CEO Sam Altman does not directly hold OpenAI equity, which remains a structural variable needing further clarification. Despite external doubts about its governance mechanisms, internally, efforts are underway to further optimize governance by moving toward a "public company" model— as CFO Sarah Friar stated, “Companies like OpenAI need to operate more like a listed company in governance and external image.”

Can the Trillion-Dollar Valuation Be Realized? Revenue, User Stagnation, and the Deep Losses

Despite high IPO expectations, OpenAI’s financial fundamentals still show significant imbalance, and the market remains skeptical about the feasibility of a trillion-dollar valuation.

From a revenue perspective, OpenAI’s Q1 revenue was about $5.7 billion, with an expected annual figure around $30 billion. The company projects that by 2030, its advertising business alone could contribute approximately $102 billion in revenue. On the user side, ChatGPT’s weekly active users have reached 905 million, but growth has plateaued, failing to surpass the 1 billion active user target. Enterprise revenue now accounts for over 40% and is expected to be on par with consumer revenue by the end of 2026. The API handles over 15 billion tokens per minute, indicating steady progress in commercial infrastructure.

However, losses remain the biggest threat. At current profit margins, generating $5.7 billion in revenue entails incurring about $6.95 billion in losses, and if profitability does not improve significantly before listing, investor relations in the public market will face long-term pressure. In H1 2025, cash burn reached $2.5 billion, with R&D expenses being the largest expenditure. For institutional investors seeking stable EBITDA and EPS, this deep loss structure represents a significant valuation discount factor.

Valuation Halves and Cold Secondary Markets: True Investor Sentiment and Divergence

While IPO expectations are high, OpenAI’s shares in the secondary market have shown a stark contrast. After raising $122 billion in March, the official valuation was pushed to $852 billion, but secondary market demand was significantly below historical levels.

Media reports indicate that about $600 million worth of OpenAI shares face weak buyer demand in the secondary market. Even though transaction prices are about 10% below official valuation, buyer expectations have further declined. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have even launched zero-commission promotions to attract investors.

In sharp contrast, competitors like Anthropic have sparked a "premium frenzy" in the secondary market—subscription orders have repeatedly exceeded $1.6 billion, with many investors willing to pay premiums. The secondary market valuation has risen to around $600 billion, nearly 50% higher than the previous funding round.

This divergence—"official valuation remains firm while secondary market demand cools"—reveals core doubts among institutional investors about the sustainability of OpenAI’s profit model. Concerns mainly focus on: excessive capital expenditure on AI infrastructure, slower-than-expected enterprise transformation, and the pressure from competitors like Anthropic, which has a stable and growing enterprise client base and expanding profit potential.

Race for Listing: Anthropic’s Simultaneous Push Adds Competitive Pressure

The biggest variable in the 2026 AI IPO race is Anthropic’s concurrent listing pace.

Not only has Anthropic surpassed OpenAI in secondary market popularity, but it is also actively preparing to apply for NASDAQ listing in the second half of 2026. Its rapid rise in enterprise AI and AI programming markets has resulted in over 300k enterprise clients. Recent reports indicate that Anthropic’s valuation has reached about $380 billion, and it is negotiating a new funding round with a target valuation of around $900 billion.

In the prediction market for "who will go public first," market sentiment has shifted markedly. Before the news of OpenAI’s IPO plans, traders believed there was only about a 32% chance OpenAI would list first; after the news, the Kalshi platform’s estimate for OpenAI going earlier jumped to 83%. Meanwhile, Polymarket’s probability of "Anthropic listing before OpenAI" dropped from 69% to 20%.

Whether this race can smoothly unfold depends on regulatory review progress, internal restructuring pace, and remaining litigation risks. But the signals are clear—the overlapping listing windows for these top companies suggest that Q4 2026 will be the most concentrated IPO window in AI history.

The Significance of AI Company Listings for the Digital Asset Market

For the crypto market, the listing pace of leading AI companies like OpenAI sends important signals.

First, the wave of listings signifies systemic recognition by traditional finance of AI—a digital sector heavily reliant on computing power and data center infrastructure. Once companies like SpaceX and OpenAI enter core NASDAQ indices, capital will more systematically flow into AI tokenization, compute power leasing RWA (real-world assets), DePIN (decentralized physical infrastructure networks), and other crypto sectors. Although OpenAI itself does not issue tokens directly, its listing’s demonstration effect will accelerate the structuring of more AI infrastructure projects on blockchain RWA.

Second, active trading on prediction platforms like Polymarket around OpenAI’s IPO timetable expands the application boundary of crypto—prediction contracts on IPO probabilities provide a core data-driven gaming interface. The total trading volume exceeding $1.5 million reflects the crypto industry’s capacity to participate in traditional tech narratives.

Third, once the AI giants complete their listings within the $852 billion to $1 trillion valuation range, their weight in the economic system will push crypto assets to establish new valuation benchmarks anchored in the AI sector. Projects related to AI compute, resource allocation, and data infrastructure in crypto will gain clearer, more direct macro reference points.

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