OpenAI is moving closer to a historic initial public offering as revenue surges past $25 billion annually, while rival Anthropic is reportedly seeking up to $50 billion in new funding at a $900 billion valuation — and crypto’s on-chain prediction markets are already pricing the outcomes.
On May 9, 2026, multiple sources confirmed that OpenAI is actively preparing its IPO for as early as the fourth quarter of 2026. The company’s annualized revenue hit $25 billion by the end of February 2026, up from $6 billion at the end of 2024, driven by ChatGPT subscriptions and enterprise adoption. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley are advising on the offering. CFO Sarah Friar has told associates the company is targeting a regulatory filing in the second half of 2026, with a potential listing in 2027. A portion of shares will be reserved for retail investors.
Despite breakneck revenue growth, OpenAI is far from profitable. The company spent approximately $22 billion to generate $13.1 billion in revenue in 2025 and projects annual cash burn will reach $57 billion by 2027 — breaking even not before 2030. A $122 billion private raise in March bought roughly 18–24 months of runway, making the IPO a financial necessity. The April 2026 conversion to a public benefit corporation removed its nonprofit structure barrier to going public.
Simultaneously, Anthropic is in talks to raise up to $50 billion at a possible $900 billion valuation, according to Financial Times sources. If completed, that round would place the Claude developer above OpenAI’s post-money valuation of $852 billion from its March financing, making it the most valuable private AI firm.
On-chain secondary markets are already reflecting this rivalry. As crypto.news reported, these decentralized venues are pricing Anthropic above OpenAI on an implied valuation basis, adding competitive pressure that makes OpenAI’s IPO timeline more urgent. Kalshi prediction markets showed near-maximum confidence that OpenAI will announce an IPO in early 2026, while Polymarket and similar platforms have seen heavy volume on contracts tied to the listing window.
A $1 trillion OpenAI listing would be the largest public offering in technology history, setting a benchmark against which all AI companies will be judged — and on-chain prediction markets are becoming a real-time barometer of investor sentiment around that milestone.
