💥 Surpassing $2 trillion! Anthropic Chooses Nasdaq, OpenAI Won’t IPO for Now: Will AI Mega-IPOs Revalue the Entire Tech and Crypto Sectors?
#传Anthropic选择纳斯达克IPO On August 22, I wrote a post comparing the valuation differences between
$OPENAI and
$ANTHROPIC . Unexpectedly, in less than a month, the story has changed again:
According to the latest reports, Anthropic has chosen Nasdaq as the potential venue for its IPO, with a market target valuation of approximately $2 trillion. October is considered a key time window.
Meanwhile, Gate’s Pre-IPO contracts have already begun trading on this expectation:
$ANTHROPIC ≈ $2,140, corresponding to an implied valuation of approximately $2.14 trillion
$OPENAI ≈ $1,430, corresponding to an implied valuation of approximately $1.43 trillion
Based on the implied valuations of the contracts, the market is currently assigning Anthropic a premium of nearly 50%.
What is even more interesting is that just as Anthropic prepares to enter the public markets, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has explicitly stated that OpenAI will not IPO in 2026.
One is moving toward Nasdaq, while the other is choosing to lie low for now.
What does this actually mean?
In my view, this may be more than a valuation battle between two AI giants. It could become a stress test for the repricing of the entire AI industry chain.
1. Is $2 trillion really expensive? The market is paying for “commercialization capabilities”
In the past, when we discussed Anthropic, the core keyword was: rapid growth.
But what the market is seeing now is more than just growth.
The latest reports show that Anthropic’s second-quarter revenue was approximately $11.5 billion, up about 14-fold year over year, with a gross margin above 80%. It is also expected to achieve positive adjusted operating profit for the second consecutive quarter.
This is extremely important.
The market has long worried: Are AI foundation models just bottomless pits that keep burning cash?
Anthropic is answering this question with rapidly growing revenue, high margins, and improving operating profitability.
And one of its most important growth engines is: Claude Code
It is taking Anthropic from chatbots into:
Software development → Enterprise software → AI Agents → Enterprise productivity
If revenue in 2028 approaches the market’s expected $200 billion, then a $2 trillion valuation implies a P/S ratio of approximately 10x.
But if it ultimately reaches only $100 billion, the P/S ratio will become 20x.
Therefore, the $2 trillion valuation is not the market paying for Anthropic’s revenue today, but discounting several years of high-speed growth in advance.
That is both its greatest opportunity and its greatest risk.
2. Anthropic’s real advantage is not just Claude, but the “enterprise closed loop”
Why is Claude Code receiving so much attention from capital markets?
Because enterprise customers are willing to pay continuously for “improved productivity.”
This means that the commercial closed loop of AI models → Agents → enterprise workflows → subscription revenue is becoming increasingly clear.
But one competitor cannot be overlooked here: OpenAI’s Codex
Anthropic is not sprinting through an uncontested field.
What will truly deserve attention in the future may be: Claude Code vs Codex
Whoever can first turn AI coding capabilities into large-scale enterprise productivity is more likely to secure a higher enterprise AI valuation.
Therefore, the high premium Anthropic is receiving now looks more like a premium for growth certainty.
It does not mean that it has already comprehensively defeated OpenAI.
3. Is OpenAI’s decision not to IPO a surrender, or a bet on a bigger future?
I lean toward the latter.
OpenAI choosing not to IPO in 2026 does not mean its business model is failing.
On the contrary, it may be avoiding premature exposure to the short-term profitability assessments of public markets.
Because OpenAI’s envisioned commercial landscape may be larger than “enterprise AI software”:
ChatGPT → Agents → Codex → Enterprise services → AI hardware → New AI interfaces
OpenAI has already advanced its custom AI chip efforts and continues to develop its AI hardware strategy related to Jony Ive’s team.
In my view, what OpenAI truly wants to compete for may not be: “Whose chatbot is stronger?”
But rather: Can AI evolve from an app on a smartphone into a new interface for interaction?
If the following can truly be achieved in the future: understanding users → making decisions proactively → calling services → completing tasks
Then OpenAI’s long-term business model could evolve from an AI model company
into: an AI platform + AI interface + AI hardware ecosystem
Therefore, the market assigning Anthropic a higher valuation today does not mean OpenAI’s long-term ceiling must be lower.
4. The most important thing to watch about Anthropic’s IPO is actually not Anthropic
This is what I consider the core issue behind today’s GATE buzz.
If Anthropic really enters the public markets at a valuation of approximately $2 trillion, it could become: a new public valuation anchor for the AI industry
From then on, whenever the market values another AI company, it will ask: “Compared with Anthropic, why is it worth this much?”
And this will directly affect three areas:
① AI computing power and infrastructure
NVIDIA, Broadcom, AMD, HBM, servers, data centers
The higher Anthropic’s valuation, the easier it will be for the market to believe that AI commercialization can still support massive capital expenditures.
More notably, the latest reports indicate that NVIDIA is discussing participating in Anthropic’s IPO as an anchor investor, with a potential investment of up to $10 billion.
The signal behind this is interesting: NVIDIA is not only selling AI computing power, but also betting on the future of AI model companies.
The capital ties among AI models, GPUs, and data centers are becoming increasingly deep.
② Cloud computing
Anthropic requires massive computing resources, while Microsoft Azure, Amazon, Google, and others all play important roles in the AI computing-power competition.
If Anthropic continues to prove that AI can generate high-quality revenue, the long-term capital expenditure logic of the industry chain—“models → computing power → cloud → data centers”—may be further reinforced.
③ AI software
This is where divergence may instead emerge.
Stronger AI Agents and coding models do not mean that all software companies will benefit.
Quite the opposite: the stronger AI becomes → the more easily some traditional software may be repriced.
Therefore, Anthropic’s IPO may not lead to an “across-the-board rise in AI stocks.”
I lean more toward: the strong get stronger, while the weak are repriced.
5. The most interesting contrast: Anthropic is challenging $2 trillion, while AI stocks are falling today
If one only looks at the IPO news, it is easy to conclude: the AI bull market is back.
But today’s market has sent a completely different signal.
On September 14, several AI- and semiconductor-related stocks in Asia fell sharply:
• SoftBank fell 13.2% at one point
• Kioxia fell approximately 9.8%
• SK Hynix fell approximately 5.3%
• Samsung Electronics fell approximately 3.7%
• Z AI fell approximately 10.5%
This shows that the market is no longer simply trading on: “The stronger AI becomes, the more stocks rise.”
Instead, it is simultaneously trading AI growth, AI capital expenditures, profitability, valuation, AI safety risks, and macro liquidity.
Therefore, I instead believe that Anthropic’s IPO looks more like a reshuffling of value across the AI industry, rather than a signal for an across-the-board rise in the sector.
6. Will Crypto AI see a “sentiment spillover” of capital?
This is also one of the questions GATE users care about most.
If Anthropic’s IPO enters a substantive development phase, the market may refocus on AI Agents, AI infrastructure, DePIN, and decentralized computing power.
As a result, AI-related assets such as $FET, $TAO, and $RENDER could receive a wave of sentiment spillover from traditional financial markets.
But we must remain clear-headed here: Anthropic’s IPO does not mean these projects will directly gain business.
The actual logic is:
AI giants’ valuations rise → the market raises its expectations for AI’s future → capital seeks higher-beta AI assets → Crypto AI may benefit from sentiment spillover
But another possibility also exists:
Anthropic/NVIDIA/AI tech stocks become new “certainty assets” → capital instead flows back from high-volatility Crypto assets into U.S. stocks → Crypto AI faces a capital drain
So the real question is not: Will Crypto AI definitely rise?
It is: Will this AI mega-IPO bring capital spillover or a capital drain?
7. Prices on Gate have actually begun answering this question in advance
Currently, Gate’s Pre-IPO contracts are approximately priced at:
$ANTHROPIC ≈ $2,140, corresponding to an implied valuation of approximately $2.14 trillion
$OPENAI ≈ $1,430, corresponding to an implied valuation of approximately $1.43 trillion
It is important to emphasize here: Pre-IPO contract prices represent market-based price discovery. They do not equal the final IPO offering price, much less the actual market capitalization after listing.
But they still have one very important value: They tell us how much the market is willing to pay in advance for the different “futures” of the two companies.
At present, the market is clearly willing to pay a higher premium for Anthropic’s growth certainty.
8. The valuation of AI giants will ultimately be determined by that “law of physics”
Whether it is Anthropic at $2 trillion or OpenAI at $1.4 trillion, both will ultimately have to answer the same question:
Can AI revenue growth ultimately outpace AI cost growth?
GPUs, electricity, data centers, model training, inference, and R&D all require massive investment.
Therefore, what will truly matter in the future is not only who has more users, nor only whose model is stronger, but:
Who can first achieve “AI revenue growth > AI infrastructure cost growth”?
Whoever crosses this inflection point first will truly qualify to become an AI supercompany.
9. My final judgment
In terms of current commercialization speed: Anthropic has the advantage
In terms of certainty in enterprise AI and Agents: Anthropic is easier for capital markets to value
In terms of consumer interfaces, Agents, hardware, and the long-term ecosystem: OpenAI’s ceiling may still be higher
Looking at the entire AI industry chain: The biggest impact of Anthropic’s IPO may not be the emergence of a $2 trillion company, but the redefinition of “how much an AI company should be worth.”
For Crypto: What is truly worth watching is not whether the AI narrative can spread to the crypto market, but whether capital ultimately chooses “the certainty of AI U.S. stocks” or “the high beta of Crypto AI.”
🚨 Finally, a question for everyone
If Anthropic ultimately lists on Nasdaq at a valuation of $2 trillion or even higher:
Will it become the new starting point of a super bull market in AI, or the final climax of an AI valuation bubble?
A. Bullish on Anthropic: Claude Code + enterprise AI + improving profitability; $2 trillion is not unreasonable
B. Faith in OpenAI: ChatGPT + Agents + AI hardware; its long-term ceiling may be higher
C. Bubble alert: $2 trillion has already priced in the future; the IPO could mark the peak of AI valuations
D. Focus on the industry chain and Crypto: AI computing power, cloud computing, Agents, and DePIN may be the bigger trading opportunities
👇 Leave your A / B / C / D + your view of the final reasonable market caps of Anthropic and OpenAI in the comments. Let’s witness this AI valuation battle together.
(This article is compiled based on public reports, market data, and Gate Pre-IPO contract information for discussion purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. The IPO timing, offering size, valuation, and related contract prices may all change; Crypto and tech stocks carry high volatility risks. Please make independent judgments and DYOR.)
