NEAR Protocol Launches Anthropic pre-IPO Perpetuals With 10x Leverage

NEAR Protocol has introduced perpetual futures tied to artificial intelligence company Anthropic on near.com, expanding its confidential trading platform with a new pre-IPO market. The contract, listed under the ticker ANT, offers leverage of up to 10x and keeps individual trading positions out of public view.

The product is powered by Hyperliquid and TradeXYZ, allowing eligible traders to take leveraged positions based on Anthropic’s anticipated share price ahead of its proposed stock market listing. NEAR announced the launch on October 27.

Unlike buying shares in a publicly traded company, trading ANT perpetual futures does not provide ownership of Anthropic or rights to its future stock offering. Instead, the contract offers derivative-based exposure to the market’s expectations for the company’s valuation.

How NEAR’s Anthropic perpetual futures work

The ANT contract is available through near.com, NEAR’s perpetual futures trading interface. Traders can open long or short positions, depending on their expectations for the contract’s price, with leverage of up to 10x.

Perpetual futures do not have a fixed expiration date. Their pricing is generally linked to an underlying reference price, with funding mechanisms helping keep the contract aligned with that reference.

Leverage allows traders to control a larger position relative to their initial margin. However, it also magnifies losses, and a relatively small adverse price movement can trigger liquidation.

The contract’s privacy feature is another central part of the launch. NEAR says individual trading positions remain out of public view, addressing the transparency that typically allows observers to inspect trading activity on public blockchains.

The platform uses NEAR Intents for cross-chain funding and Hyperliquid for derivatives execution. 

Related: NEAR's confidential perpetuals cover 50+ Hyperliquid markets, this infrastructure allows users to fund positions using assets from multiple supported blockchains while keeping position details private.

Anthropic’s proposed IPO brings attention to the ANT contract

The launch comes as Anthropic advances plans for a public listing. The company, which develops the Claude family of AI models, filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on October 26 for a proposed offering.

Anthropic’s filing identifies the Nasdaq Global Select Market as its intended listing venue and ANT as the proposed ticker for its Class A common stock. The filing does not mean the shares are already publicly trading, and the final offering details remain subject to the IPO process.

The proposed listing has created interest in markets that allow traders to form views on Anthropic’s potential valuation before its shares begin trading publicly.

However, a pre-IPO perpetual contract is not a substitute for holding shares. Its price can differ from the eventual IPO price, and traders do not receive shareholder rights, dividends, or an allocation in the public offering simply by holding the derivative.

Confidential trading expands NEAR’s Hyperliquid offering

The ANT launch builds on NEAR’s existing integration with Hyperliquid. The platform already supports perpetual futures across multiple markets, with NEAR’s privacy infrastructure designed to keep individual positions out of public view.

Adding an Anthropic-linked contract extends that offering beyond conventional cryptocurrency trading into derivatives tied to a private company approaching a potential stock market debut.

The move also highlights the growing overlap between crypto trading infrastructure and traditional financial markets. On-chain derivatives can give eligible users access to new forms of price exposure, although each product’s structure, liquidity, and reference pricing need to be assessed separately.

NEAR’s official trading interface notes that perpetual futures are unavailable to U.S. persons and users in other restricted jurisdictions. Access therefore depends on applicable eligibility and geographic restrictions.

What traders should watch

The ANT contract’s performance will depend on market expectations for Anthropic, the liquidity available in the contract, and how its reference price evolves as more information about the proposed IPO becomes available.

Traders should also consider funding costs, leverage, liquidation risk, and possible differences between the derivative’s price and the eventual public-market share price.

For NEAR, the launch represents another use of its confidential trading infrastructure. For users, it introduces a way to trade Anthropic-related price exposure before the company’s proposed listing, but it does not provide direct ownership in the AI company.