Crash! Anthropic's valuation soars to $1 trillion, crushing OpenAI, but retail investors can't even get a sip?

Bro, have you been watching the AI sector lately? It’s crazy.

Anthropic, the company behind Claude, has already been valued at $1 trillion in the private secondary market.

Yes, you heard that right, $1 trillion. It’s directly surpassing OpenAI, which is only valued at $880 billion.

A few months ago, no one believed this number, but now, buyers are rushing to invest, pushing the price up aggressively.

Kelly Rodriques, CEO of Forge Global, revealed that Anthropic’s valuation on their platform is around $1 trillion, while OpenAI is only at $880 billion.

Keep in mind, OpenAI’s valuation earlier this year was just $852 billion, more than double Anthropic’s last funding round.

Now? Market sentiment has completely flipped; in some traders’ eyes, OpenAI has become a “cold stock.”

This is due to an extreme imbalance of supply and demand in the secondary market. Anthropic’s shareholders hold very few chips, but buyers are flooding in like crazy.

Some sellers are even directly asking for a valuation of $1.15 trillion.

For institutional investors and family offices, holding shares of Anthropic has shifted from a financial decision to a status symbol.

This premium has become irrational.

Three months ago, Anthropic just completed a funding round led by GIC and Coatue, with a valuation of only $380 billion.

Suddenly, Silicon Valley’s demand for it exploded, driven by two reasons: rapid revenue growth and the market’s enthusiasm for AI coding assistant Claude Code.

Ken Sawyer, co-founder of Saints Capital, said that recently, an Anthropic shareholder offered to sell shares at a valuation of $1.15 trillion.

Jesse Leimgruber, founder of OpenHome, posted on X that a “highly reputable growth fund” bid $1.05 trillion to buy in, and he exclaimed, “This is crazy.”

Even more exaggerated, some buyers have proposed selling their homes to exchange for Anthropic shares valued at over $800 billion.

Glen Anderson, CEO of Rainmaker Securities, said he just received a buy offer valued at $960 billion. “It was impossible a few weeks ago, but before I could even evaluate it, someone else snapped it up. Almost no sellers.”

Bradley Horowitz, GP of Wisdom Ventures, who invested early in both Anthropic and OpenAI, said, “We get all kinds of offers daily, from absurd to tempting, but I hardly open those emails because we’re not interested — we’re in it for the long term.”

Anderson pointed out the core issue: this demand has nothing to do with fundamentals; it’s purely FOMO.

Venture capitalists and family office investors feel they must hold Anthropic shares no matter what.

“This is almost no longer about returns; it’s about whether you can say you’re an Anthropic investor,” Anderson said. “That’s the real reason prices are being driven up.”

He also mentioned that this year, there’s almost no buying interest in OpenAI shares, with market bids even below its latest funding valuation of $852 billion. “The market for OpenAI is very cold; sentiment has clearly shifted toward Anthropic.”

Since neither Anthropic nor OpenAI are publicly listed, investors wanting to hold positions can only do so through the secondary market — buying stock from current or former employees and early investors.

Both companies have not responded to media requests for comment.

Platforms like Forge Global have become important windows into observing valuation changes in private AI companies.

But you need to understand that secondary market valuations reflect the supply and demand game of buyers and sellers at a specific point in time, not the company’s audited intrinsic value.

Its volatility and emotional premium are naturally higher than primary market funding prices.

In plain terms, this is now a gambling casino based on sentiment.

What do I think?

I only trust the data.

No matter how high Anthropic’s revenue is, what annualized return rate would be needed to justify a $1 trillion valuation?

How is this different from the internet bubble back then?

Retail investors can’t even get in; they can only watch institutions party inside.

When the tide goes out, we’ll see who’s swimming naked.

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