ETFs use 'perps' to sell bets on Anthropic and OpenAI before they go public
What's the deal? A string of exchange-traded products now offers ordinary investors exposure to unlisted Anthropic and OpenAI through perpetual futures, or "perps", the Financial Times reported on 28 October 2026. Perps were only cleared to trade in the US in May 2026.
Who is doing it? According to the FT, two US ETFs launched this month hold total return swaps linked to perps on Anthropic and OpenAI: Leverage Shares' MANGOS ETF (Meta, Anthropic, Nvidia, Alphabet, OpenAI, SpaceX), run with Themes ETFs, and a fund from Corgi. Defiance ETFs has filed for a fund that would put 80% into "pre-IPO leaders". In Europe, 21shares started trading its Anthropic Synthetic ETP (ticker CLAU) on 13 October on the Vienna MTF and later in Stuttgart. It tracks a Kaiko reference rate derived from Anthropic perps on Binance, with no leverage, a 1.00% expense ratio and a 2.00% exit fee, issued through a vehicle with FalconX.
How does the price work? Private companies have no observable share price, so exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase and Hyperliquid set their own reference prices from market makers' bids and offers, sometimes guided by outside indications of value, the FT reports. Investors own no shares. Themes ETFs' Paul Marino told the FT its fund switches to the actual shares when a company lists.
What are people saying? 21shares CEO Russell Barlow told the FT that "perpetual futures can be the next big innovation in financial markets", and NovaDius' Nate Geraci said usage could "absolutely explode". Critics are less keen. "They are essentially bets," said Benjamin Schiffrin of Better Markets, adding that "the perpetual future itself is making up the reference price". Morningstar's Kenneth Lamont worries investors may misunderstand what they own and sees manipulation risk in thin markets.
The signal: AI's biggest value creation is happening in private companies, and Wall Street is building back doors to it for retail money before Anthropic or OpenAI list. The prices those products track can drift away from funding-round marks or eventual IPO prices.
Read more: Financial Times · 21shares · Yahoo Finance
Image: the New York Stock Exchange. Credit: via Financial Times
