Quick answer (updated 2026-11-06)
ANT is a perpetual futures contract on Polymarket Perps that follows a reference price drawn from Anthropic's private valuation. You can go long or short with up to 10x leverage, at half the normal trading fees. You do not get Anthropic shares, IPO allocation or any rights in the company. Polymarket has not published what the price number means or what happens to the contract when Anthropic goes public. Perps are blocked in the US, Canada and other restricted places.
The Short Version
ANT, listed on 2026-10-29, is the first market in Polymarket's Pre-IPO category. It works like every Polymarket perp: you post pUSD as margin, go long or short, pay or receive funding every hour, and are liquidated if your equity falls below the maintenance margin. The difference is the underlying. Anthropic is private, so there is no exchange price, the market is much thinner than BTC or the S&P 500, and the biggest future event, an IPO, has no published rulebook.
What this guide answers
- What ANT is, and what the price appears to mean
- Liquidation prices on ANT, with worked examples
- Half-price fees and the competition boost
- Liquidity, gap risk and what may happen at an IPO
- SpaceX (SPCX) and other private-company names
What the ANT perp is, and what it is not
Polymarket says pre-IPO perps "let you go long or short on individual private companies like Anthropic ahead of their public listings, with leverage and no expiration date. Instead of buying shares, you take a directional position against a reference price drawn from the company's private valuation." Hourly funding between longs and shorts keeps the contract close to that reference.
The ANT market on 6 November 2026, filed under Perps / Pre-IPO. Maximum leverage is 10x.
ANT is a contract between traders on Polymarket. If the price rises, longs gain and shorts lose, and the reverse if it falls. Nobody in the trade owns any part of Anthropic.
| ANT perp on Polymarket | Anthropic shares | |
|---|---|---|
| What you hold | A long or short position against a reference price | Equity in the company |
| Ownership | None. Polymarket: "You never take ownership of the equity" | Yes |
| IPO allocation | None | Depends on the investor |
| Can you bet on a fall | Yes, open a short | Not directly |
| Leverage | Up to 10x (lower for large positions) | No |
| Expiry | None. The position stays open until you close it or it is liquidated | Not applicable |
| Ongoing cost | Hourly funding, paid or received | None |
| Can you lose your whole stake quickly | Yes, through liquidation | Only if the share value collapses |
New to perps? Read your first Polymarket Perps trade first: deposits, order types and closing a position, step by step.
Key numbers (as of November 2026)
From Polymarket's Perps API and the ANT market page, read on 2026-11-06. Leverage, fees and limits can change, and the snapshot rows are already out of date, so open the live ANT market for current figures.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Category | Pre-IPO (the only market in that category) |
| Listed | 2026-10-29 |
| API symbol | ANT-USD, instrument ID 97 |
| Collateral | pUSD |
| Maximum leverage | 10x up to $500,000 notional, then 5x, 3x from $1M, 2x from $3M, 1x from $5M |
| Maintenance margin rate | 5% of notional (0.5 / 10x) |
| Default margin mode | Isolated (cross margin is also available) |
| Minimum order | $10 notional |
| Largest single order | $500,000 market order, $2,500,000 limit order |
| Trading fees (base tier) | Taker 0.020%, maker 0.00625% (half the standard 0.040% / 0.0125%) |
| Funding | Every hour, capped at +/-4% per hour |
| Liquidation fee | 0.5% of notional |
| Trading hours | 24/7 |
| Snapshot: price | About $1,604.6 to $1,608.2 (2026-11-06, 18:01 UTC) |
| Snapshot: 24h range | Low $1,582.1, high $1,770.0 |
| Snapshot: 24h volume | About $2.73M |
| Snapshot: open interest | About $0.22M |
| Snapshot: funding | 0.00063% per hour (longs paying shorts) |
What the ANT price number appears to mean
Polymarket has not said. Here is what is confirmed and what is not.
- Confirmed: the contract tracks "a reference price drawn from the company's private valuation" (Polymarket's pre-IPO page).
- Confirmed: like every Polymarket perp, ANT has an oracle (index) price from external feeds and a mark price that Polymarket calculates for PnL and liquidations. On 2026-11-06 the ANT page showed an oracle price of 1,608.2 and a mark price of 1,607.8, a gap of 0.02%.
- Confirmed: Polymarket's docs name Pyth, Chainlink Data Streams and Hyperliquid as possible index feed sources. They do not say which feed ANT uses.
- Not confirmed: crypto news outlets (KuCoin News citing Odaily, 2026-10-29) reported that ANT uses Hyperliquid's
io:ANTmarket as its reference price. Polymarket's own docs do not state this. - Not confirmed: the number looks like Anthropic's valuation in billions of US dollars. A price of 1,604.6 would then mean about $1.6 trillion. That reading fits press reports of Anthropic perps implying valuations of $1.7T to $1.9T, but Polymarket has not confirmed the unit.
For your PnL the unit does not matter: profit or loss is quantity times the change in mark price. What matters is that the reference is a private valuation from thin external markets, not a share price set by a stock exchange.
Leverage, margin and liquidation on ANT
Initial margin is notional divided by your leverage. Maintenance margin is a flat 5% of notional (0.5 divided by the 10x maximum). If equity falls below maintenance margin, the position is liquidated.
With a position open, the chart draws your entry (1,600.7) and liquidation (1,676.9) lines. This 10x short would be liquidated by a rise of about 4.8%.
- Entry price: 1,600. Notional: $1,000. Quantity: 1,000 / 1,600 = 0.625 ANT.
- Initial margin: $1,000 / 10 = $100.
- Liquidation happens when equity equals maintenance margin: 100 + 0.625 x (P - 1,600) = 0.05 x 0.625 x P.
- That gives 100 + 0.625P - 1,000 = 0.03125P, so 0.59375P = 900, and P = 1,515.79.
- That is a fall of 5.26%. At that point you have lost 0.625 x (1,600 - 1,515.79) = $52.63, about half your margin. The 0.5% liquidation fee then applies to the closing fills.
- Liquidation: 100 + 0.625 x (1,600 - P) = 0.03125P.
- That gives 1,100 = 0.65625P, so P = 1,676.19, a rise of 4.76%.
The short formula is entry x (1 + 1/leverage) / (1 + 0.05), and the long formula is entry x (1 - 1/leverage) / (1 - 0.05). Polymarket's own ANT page gives an example that matches: a 10x long at a mark of 1,607.8 liquidates around 1,523.2 (1,607.8 x 0.9 / 0.95 = 1,523.18).
| Leverage (entry 1,600) | Long liquidation | Move against you | Short liquidation | Move against you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10x | 1,515.79 | -5.26% | 1,676.19 | +4.76% |
| 5x | 1,347.37 | -15.79% | 1,828.57 | +14.29% |
| 3x | 1,122.81 | -29.82% | 2,031.75 | +26.98% |
| 2x | 842.11 | -47.37% | 2,285.71 | +42.86% |
These are isolated-margin numbers. Fees, funding and slippage move the real liquidation price a little closer, and with cross margin your other positions change the result. The position panel shows the live liquidation price, so read it before you confirm. For margin modes, the insurance fund and auto-deleveraging, see the Polymarket Perps leverage and liquidation guide.
Fees: half price on ANT, and the cost of holding
ANT has had a fee override since 2026-10-29 15:23 UTC, with no end date set. Polymarket can change it. Tiers follow your trailing 30-day Perps volume.
| 30-day volume | ANT taker | ANT maker | Standard taker | Standard maker |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $0 | 0.0200% | 0.00625% | 0.0400% | 0.0125% |
| $1M | 0.0185% | 0.0050% | 0.0370% | 0.0100% |
| $5M | 0.0175% | 0.0040% | 0.0350% | 0.0080% |
| $25M | 0.0150% | 0.0025% | 0.0300% | 0.0050% |
| $100M | 0.0135% | 0.0010% | 0.0270% | 0.0020% |
| $500M | 0.0125% | 0.0000% | 0.0250% | 0.0000% |
| $1B | 0.0100% | -0.0050% (rebate) | 0.0200% | -0.0050% (rebate) |
"Half fees" is exact for taker fees at every tier, but the $1B maker rebate is the same as on other markets.
Funding is paid every hour between longs and shorts. Polymarket takes no cut. When the order book is balanced, non-crypto markets sit at a baseline of 0.000625% per hour, and ANT showed 0.00063% in the snapshot. At that baseline, a $10,000 long pays 10,000 x 0.000625% = $0.0625 per hour, which is $1.50 per day and $10.50 per week. The rate can move up to 4% per hour in either direction, which would be $400 per hour on $10,000. When the rate is negative, shorts pay longs. The Polymarket Perps funding rates guide explains how the rate is calculated.
The trading competition boost
Polymarket runs bi-weekly Perps trading competitions with a $50,000 prize pool for the top 50. Competition #1 runs from 2026-11-02 14:30 UTC to 2026-11-16 14:30 UTC, and ANT has the largest boost: 3x (AMD, ARM and SOXL have 2x).
- Score = PnL x the square root of boosted volume, with PnL after fees and funding. The boost multiplies ANT volume only, never PnL.
- Example: $100,000 of ANT volume counts as $300,000 of boosted volume. The square root rises from 316.2 to 547.7, so the same PnL scores about 1.73 times higher.
- To be ranked you need at least $100,000 of real (unboosted) notional volume and a positive PnL.
- Wash trading, self-trading, multiple accounts and trading only for volume lead to disqualification.
A boost does not rescue a losing trade: a negative PnL scores nothing. Boosts change between competitions. Prizes and rules are in the Polymarket Perps guide.
Liquidity and gap risk
ANT is not a deep market. In the snapshot it traded about $2.7M in 24 hours, against about $17.4M for US100 (Nasdaq 100) and $14.6M for BTC. Thin markets cause three problems.
- Slippage. A large market order walks through several price levels. Use limit orders and check depth before you size up.
- Fast moves against leverage. The 24h range in the snapshot was $1,582.1 to $1,770.0, a spread of 11.9%. That is more than twice the distance to liquidation at 10x. If the price fell from the high to the low, a 10x long opened at $1,770.0 would have been liquidated at about $1,676.8 (1,770.0 x 0.9 / 0.95), long before the low.
- Liquidations do not wait for a good price. Liquidated positions close with market orders and "no protective spread off Mark", so in a thin book the exit can be worse than the liquidation price you saw. If the insurance fund cannot absorb a loss, auto-deleveraging can force-reduce winning positions.
Private-company news, such as a funding round or an IPO filing, can reprice the reference in a jump. The feeds behind it are not fully disclosed, and feed errors happen: in September 2026 Polymarket fixed a bug that had mispriced the index by roughly 60 to 70 basis points on some commodity and equity markets using Hyperliquid data. It did not involve ANT, but it shows that a feed problem can move your mark price.
What may happen to ANT at an IPO
As of 2026-11-06, Polymarket has not published rules for ANT at an Anthropic IPO. This is what the sources support.
- Press report, not confirmed by Polymarket: KuCoin News, citing Odaily on 2026-10-29, said the contract is "planned to transition into a standard perpetual contract after Anthropic completes its IPO", presumably then following the listed share price. Timing, price unit and any adjustment are not public.
- Documented for any market: Polymarket can make a market close-only and then settle it: "Remaining positions close at the trailing 30-minute time-weighted index average with no fee." This is the general delisting process, not an announced plan for ANT.
- No IPO rights, whatever happens to the contract.
The practical risk is a gap. On listing day the reference could jump to wherever the market values the new shares, and leveraged positions on the wrong side can be liquidated within minutes. If IPO news breaks while you hold ANT, lower your leverage or close.
SpaceX (SPCX) and other private-company names
ANT is the only Pre-IPO market, and Polymarket says it plans "to add other highly anticipated companies ahead of their IPOs". Some private-company names already trade under Stocks.
- SPCX (SpaceX): SpaceX is private, and press reports say SPCX tracks SpaceX shares. The API files it as an equity. It has ANT's leverage limits (10x, stepping down from $500,000 notional), standard fees, and in the snapshot about $0.51M of 24h volume and $0.36M of open interest. What the price follows and what happens at a listing are also unpublished.
- CXMT: listed as an equity. It appears to be ChangXin Memory, a private company, but Polymarket has not confirmed the underlying.
For any private-company perp, ask the same three questions: what is the reference, how thin is the market, and what happens at a listing. If you cannot answer them, keep size and leverage low.
Before you trade ANT: a checklist
- Confirm Perps is allowed where you live and where you are. No VPNs.
- Decide your maximum loss in dollars, then set the size. Leverage changes the margin you post, not the loss at your stop.
- Use 2x to 3x unless you have a tight stop and watch the position. At 10x, one ordinary ANT day can liquidate you.
- Keep isolated margin (the default) so a bad ANT trade cannot drain your other positions.
- Set a stop loss when you open. Stops trigger on the mark price.
- Prefer limit orders and check depth for your size.
- Check the funding rate before you hold overnight.
- Watch for IPO or funding-round news, and reduce leverage before known events.
- Remember that at least 10% of your open position value stays locked against withdrawal while the position is open.
Then open the ANT market on Polymarket Perps and start small.
Key takeaway
ANT lets you trade a view on Anthropic's private valuation, long or short, at half the usual fees. It gives no shares or IPO rights, the price unit and the IPO plan are not confirmed, and the market is thin enough to wipe out a 10x position in one day.
What's Next?
- Polymarket Perps: the complete guide: markets, access, competitions
- Your first Polymarket Perps trade: deposit to withdrawal
- Polymarket Perps leverage and liquidation: margin modes and ADL
- Polymarket Perps funding rates and fees: the cost of holding
- Polymarket Perps API trading bot: stops and kill switches in code
Sources (checked 2026-11-06): Polymarket Perps API (instruments, fees for instrument 97, competition 1), Polymarket ANT market page and pre-IPO page, Polymarket Perps docs (margin, liquidation mechanics, funding, index price, changelog, trading competitions, geographic restrictions), Perps competition rules, KuCoin News citing Odaily (2026-10-29), FourWeekMBA (2026-11-02).
