According to reports from Crypto.news, Kraken is offering perpetual futures tied to the private-market valuations of OpenAI and Anthropic, giving eligible traders leveraged exposure before either artificial intelligence company completes a public listing. The contracts are cash-settled and provide price exposure without shares, voting rights, dividends or ownership in either company. OpenAI trades under the PF_OPENAIXUSD symbol, while Kraken excludes customers in the U.S., European Economic Area, Canada, Australia and New Zealand from these products entirely.
As reported by Crypto.news, the contracts offer maximum leverage of five times globally with pricing using a smoothed synthetic index. The mark prices are clamped within a 0.25% band continuously, designed to limit liquidations caused by momentary price spikes in a thin market. The base maintenance margin is 10%, with leverage decreasing for larger positions from 5x to approximately 3.3x and then 2x as exposure increases. Funding payments are realized every hour, with Kraken describing funding as "structurally minimal" during the pre-IPO period.
According to Crypto.news, Kraken created the Kraken PreMarket Synthetic index as the external reference since neither company has publicly traded shares. The exchange applies exponential smoothing to the index, reducing the influence of short-lived order-book movements and causing the reference value to adjust gradually when market prices change. The contracts settle in U.S. dollars through Kraken's multi-collateral derivatives account, with eligible users providing supported assets as margin subject to the exchange's collateral haircuts and risk rules.
As reported by Crypto.news, Kraken intends to change the contracts if OpenAI or Anthropic completes an IPO, replacing its synthetic reference with an index based on the relevant company's xStocks product. The exchange plans to disclose conversion details before implementation and warns that neither contract guarantees the referenced company will complete an IPO. If an IPO does not occur or Kraken cannot obtain reliable pricing, the exchange reserves the right to delist and settle affected contracts.
According to Crypto.news, the products are unavailable in the U.S., EEA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with only professional clients able to access them in the United Kingdom. Payward Digital Solutions offers the products from Bermuda under Bermuda Monetary Authority licensing. Other exchanges have built similar markets, with Coinbase adding private-company perpetuals for eligible users outside the U.S., while Hyperliquid and specialized platforms have offered synthetic exposure to companies approaching public listings. Recent developments show Hyperliquid Labs is in talks with Kraken's parent company about entering the US market, potentially allowing clients to trade perpetual crypto futures via Bitnomial, a platform controlled by Payward.
