21shares has launched CLAU, a European ETP offering synthetic exposure to Anthropic's implied market value ahead of an anticipated IPO – priced off the same futures contract on Anthropic already trading on a crypto exchange.
Anthropic, the company behind the chatbot Claude, has filed its S-1 registration with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and plans to list on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker ANT. According to the Wall Street Journal, the listing could value the company at over $1.5 trillion, up from $965 billion in May, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as advisers. Traditionally, it has been difficult for ordinary investors to gain exposure to companies before an IPO — such shares normally trade only between institutional investors and selected employees.
When an investor buys CLAU, the money flows into a special-purpose vehicle (SPV) set up by 21shares together with crypto broker FalconX. The SPV enters into an agreement with FalconX that gives it exposure to a reference price for Anthropic, calculated by data provider Kaiko. The reference price — called the Kaiko Anthropic USD Reference Rate — is derived from perpetual futures contracts on Anthropic already trading on Binance. That gives the ETP holder a return that tracks the implied market value crypto exchanges have priced in for Anthropic, without owning any actual share in the company.
21shares says CLAU is designed to keep functioning even after Anthropic eventually goes public. The product will not automatically convert into holding actual shares in the company — the exposure remains synthetic and tied to the reference price, regardless of whether and when a listing happens. Bloomberg has previously pointed to an Anthropic IPO possibly landing around Thanksgiving, though the company has not confirmed any specific date.
CLAU's reference price is built on that same futures contract, which has only been available on Binance since June 2, 2026, with still-limited open interest — estimated at around $42.5 million. That makes the pricing foundation CLAU is built on thin compared with established asset classes, which can mean bigger price swings and worse liquidity than investors are used to from traditional listed products.
Adrian Fritz, head of investment strategy at 21shares, has pointed out that market depth in these futures contracts is still limited, and that this is a risk investors need to be aware of — particularly for larger trades. He has also explained that the SPV structure was chosen because it lets 21shares build a regulated, listed wrapper around an exposure that otherwise exists only in the crypto market. Fritz has also said 21shares is looking at the possibility of cross-listing the product on more European exchanges beyond Vienna, if demand warrants it.
Beyond CLAU, there are other ways investors can seek exposure to Anthropic's value ahead of an IPO, including derivatives on certain crypto exchanges and North American ETFs currently under regulatory review but not yet launched. These are not covered in detail here. So far, CLAU is the only product offering this kind of exposure through an ordinary European brokerage account.
Sources: 21shares, Blockstories, Bloomberg, Kaupr
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