CoreWeave sell-off widens valuation gap between OpenAI and Anthropic
Perpetual futures on the Hyperliquid exchange show OpenAI's implied valuation down more than 4% while Anthropic's rose 2.4% as CoreWeave shares hit a one-year low.
At a glance
- OpenAI's perpetual futures imply a valuation down more than 4% in 24 hours, briefly under $1.5 trillion.
- Anthropic's perpetuals rose 2.4% in the same period, indicating a valuation just over $2 trillion.
- CoreWeave shares touched a one-year low Thursday, extending a decline to 54% on debt-financing concerns.
OpenAI's implied valuation fell more than 4% over the past 24 hours, briefly slipping below $1.5 trillion, while rival Anthropic's rose 2.4% in the same window to indicate a valuation of just over $2 trillion, according to perpetual futures pricing on the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid. The widening spread comes as a sell-off in CoreWeave drags neocloud stocks lower.
The figures are not conventional valuations. They are derived from perpetual futures — bets that never expire — listed on Hyperliquid. Deployers, the developers who build on the exchange's blockchain infrastructure, set a funding rate for long and short positions based on a spot "oracle" price, which is estimated from third-party data including private funding rounds and secondary market transactions.
Trading activity concentrates in Anthropic
Open interest — the combined value of long and short positions on a contract, as Hyperliquid defines it — is more than five times larger for Anthropic than for OpenAI: over $41 million compared with less than $7 million.
Entropy IO is the deployer behind the current pre-IPO contracts. TradeXYZ, the platform's most prominent developer, usually waits until S-1 filings are public before listing pre-IPO perpetuals, said David Schamis, CEO of Hyperliquid Strategies, the publicly traded treasury company that invests in the HYPE token powering the exchange.
"Liquidity will probably be deeper once TradeXYZ lists these companies," Schamis said on a call. "Generally these will trade at a premium to the IPO price but they do a good job predicting where it will be post-IPO."
CoreWeave links
OpenAI's steeper decline reflects its closer ties to CoreWeave, a company that rents out GPUs. CoreWeave shares touched a new one-year low on Thursday, extending their fall over that period to 54%, as concern mounts over the company's debt-financing strategy.
CoreWeave announced a deal in April to power Anthropic's Claude products but did not disclose its value. Its relationship with OpenAI goes back further; as of September 2025 it was worth at least $22 billion, including a five-year agreement to provide datacenters and technology.
Both companies' perpetuals remain about 15% below the highs they reached last month, according to Hyperliquid pricing, even as OpenAI's contracts have dropped harder than Anthropic's over the past day.
Source: CNBC Top News.
Questions and answers
- What are Hyperliquid's perpetual futures for OpenAI and Anthropic?
- They are never-expiring bets on the two companies' pre-IPO valuations, priced by deployers using a spot oracle built from third-party data such as private funding rounds and secondary market transactions.
- Why is OpenAI's implied valuation falling faster than Anthropic's?
- OpenAI has closer ties to CoreWeave, whose shares hit a new one-year low Thursday. CoreWeave's relationship with OpenAI was worth at least $22 billion as of September 2025.
- How much trading activity is there in these pre-IPO contracts?
- Open interest in Anthropic perpetuals exceeds $41 million, more than five times that of OpenAI, which is under $7 million, according to Hyperliquid.
