Nvidia (NVDA) in Talks to Back Anthropic IPO With Up to $10 Billion

A $10 Billion Anchor Bet

Nvidia (NVDA) is in talks to commit as much as $10 billion to the initial public offering of artificial intelligence lab Anthropic, a potential backing that would help the listing chase the largest stock-market debut on record. The discussions were first reported by Reuters on Friday, and neither company has confirmed the figures under negotiation. Anthropic is targeting a raise of up to $100 billion at a valuation approaching $2 trillion, with the debut expected ahead of the November midterm elections. The listing would need to beat two records at once. SpaceX set the current benchmark in June by raising $75 billion at roughly $1.8 trillion, with shares closing 19% higher on day one — one of the biggest IPO returns ever printed on a candlestick chart. Anthropic's $100 billion target would clear the raise mark, and a $2 trillion valuation would clear the pricing mark, if the deal comes to market as described. The anchor mechanism is what makes such pricing credible: the investor agrees to take a large block of shares before the book opens, signaling to subsequent buyers that the valuation carries institutional support. Nvidia's $10 billion would cover roughly a tenth of the total raise, and it extends an existing pattern — Nvidia (NVDA) pledged the identical amount in November 2025 and stands behind a $105 billion backstop on AI data-center leases. The chipmaker has been moving across the AI stack all year, from its $12.93 billion Hugging Face acquisition to fending off rivals like Enflame's 234% Shanghai debut. Anthropic filed confidentially in June and has yet to publish its prospectus, so every figure remains provisional until the offering document lands.

Pre-IPO Perps Already Price a Record

Crypto markets are not waiting for the prospectus. Nineteen exchanges now list pre-IPO perpetual futures on Anthropic — contracts that let traders speculate on a private company's valuation before it ever lists — with Kraken, Coinbase and Binance among the venues offering them. Data aggregated by CoinGecko shows those contracts implied an average Anthropic valuation of $1.94 trillion at the start of September, already above the $1.8 trillion SpaceX carried at pricing. In effect, leveraged derivatives have priced in the record before the underwriters have, using the same margin trading mechanics that govern crypto perpetuals — which amplifies both the price discovery and the downside risk. Prediction markets tell a more cautious story on timing. On Polymarket, a blockchain-settled event-betting platform, traders give the IPO only 67% odds of completing by October 31, with those odds rising to 85% by November 15 and 90% by year-end across $2.89 million in volume. The market expects the record to fall, just not necessarily before the midterm elections. Sentiment around the stock itself has stayed constructive — Tom Lee recently framed Nvidia's 8.74% earnings-day jump as a broad-market health signal, and the anchor talks land on top of that backdrop. For traders weighing venues for these pre-IPO contracts, our guide to the best crypto exchanges compares fee structures and perp availability across the major platforms. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bitget.

A $2 Trillion Test for AI Valuations

COINOTAG's reading is that the two threads here are one story: Nvidia is converting its balance sheet into underwriting muscle, while on-chain prediction markets converge on the same $2 trillion question from the other direction. A $10 billion anchor order would be the strongest single vote of confidence an AI listing has received. What stays unconfirmed matters as much as what is reported — no official filing or company disclosure verifies the $10 billion figure, the valuation, or the raise, and the prospectus remains unpublished.