TLDR
- Kraken has launched cash-settled perpetual futures contracts for OpenAI and Anthropic, allowing traders to go long or short before either company goes public.
- Both contracts offer up to 5x leverage with no expiry date and support multi-collateral margin.
- Pricing uses Kraken’s own synthetic index since neither company has publicly traded shares.
- The contracts are unavailable in the U.S., European Economic Area, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
- If either company completes an IPO, Kraken plans to switch pricing to a tokenized equity-based index.
Kraken has launched perpetual futures contracts tied to the private-market valuations of OpenAI and Anthropic. The products let eligible traders take leveraged positions on both AI companies before either completes a public stock listing.
ANTHROPIC pre-IPO perpetual futures (PF_ANTHROPICXUSD) live with up to 5x leverage
☑️ Long or short
☑️ Hedge an existing Anthropic position
☑️ Multi-collateral margin
☑️ No expiryTrade now 👇https://t.co/IlyVXfoaCv
*Geo restrictions apply. Leverage magnifies gains and… pic.twitter.com/bY2DIMFFCE
— Kraken (@krakenfx) September 6, 2026
The contracts are cash-settled and have no expiration date. Traders can go long or short, and both products support multi-collateral margin through Kraken’s flex account system.
How the Contracts Work
The OpenAI contract trades under the symbol PF_OPENAIXUSD. The Anthropic contract trades as PF_ANTHROPICXUSD. Kraken confirmed support for both on September 6, 2026.
Holding either contract does not give traders any shares, voting rights, dividends, or ownership in either company. The contracts simply track traders’ expectations of each company’s value.
Maximum leverage is 5x at the base tier. This requires an initial margin of 20% of the position’s value. Maintenance margin sits at 10%, and leverage steps down for larger positions.
Funding payments are settled every hour. Kraken describes these funding costs as low during the pre-IPO period due to how tightly the mark price is managed.
Traders can lose all of their margin. Kraken also warns that losses can exceed the initial deposit depending on account conditions.
How Kraken Prices Private Companies
Because neither OpenAI nor Anthropic has publicly traded shares, Kraken built its own pricing tool called the Kraken PreMarket Synthetic index.
The index derives its value from activity within the perpetual market itself rather than from an external stock price. Kraken applies exponential smoothing to reduce the effect of short-term price spikes.
The mark price is clamped within a 0.25% band around the synthetic index at all times. This is designed to limit sudden liquidations in a market that may have low liquidity.
The protection does not remove valuation risk. If traders collectively misjudge a company’s value, the synthetic index can reflect that error with no outside price to correct it.
Anthropic-linked futures on other platforms have previously dropped as much as 9% following new exchange listings, showing how sharply these contracts can move.
Geographic Restrictions and Regulatory Context
The contracts are not available to customers in the U.S., European Economic Area, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. In the United Kingdom, access is limited to professional clients only.
Payward Digital Solutions offers the products from Bermuda under a license from the Bermuda Monetary Authority.
Other exchanges, including Coinbase and Hyperliquid, have also listed private-company perpetuals for eligible non-U.S. users.
If OpenAI or Anthropic completes an IPO, Kraken plans to replace the synthetic index with pricing tied to its xStocks tokenized equity products. If no IPO occurs, Kraken may delist and settle the contracts.
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