Anthropic's $965 billion valuation gets doubled by leveraged crypto bets

Crypto traders have valued Anthropic at about $2.12 trillion using leveraged derivatives that don’t actually carry a stake in the company. That’s more than twice the $965 billion valuation the maker of Claude last raised money at in May.

The wager comes weeks before Anthropic is anticipated to file the prospectus that will finally put a real number on the company.

Binance assumes 1 billion shares to reach its $2,120 quote

Binance’s ANTHROPIC/$USDT contract hit $2,120 on September 9. Binance takes that price and converts it into a company value by assuming one billion shares outstanding, which is how the quote reads as a $2.12 trillion valuation.

Similar contracts traded in the same range on Bitget, Kraken, BingX, Aster, and Coinbase International.

Binance on June 2 listed the perpetual, settled in tether, with leverage of as much as 20 times. Its price is driven by exchange trading activity, not any public share count.

The exchange said its one billion share number was solely for informational purposes and implied valuation was not attributable to or endorsed by Binance. By contrast, OKX picks up 10 billion shares, resulting in a much smaller per-unit quote but at about the same company value.