Coinbase Will Let You Bet on OpenAI and Anthropic Before They Go Public

The two hottest companies in AI are still private, and Coinbase wants to sell you a piece anyway. The exchange launched a product giving everyday investors exposure to OpenAI and Anthropic before their expected IPOs. It is a bet that people want in on the AI boom badly enough to buy it through a crypto platform.

The appeal is access to the inaccessible. OpenAI and Anthropic are among the most valuable private companies in the world, at roughly 850 billion and 965 billion dollars, but ordinary investors normally cannot buy into private firms, which are reserved for insiders and big funds. Coinbase is packaging exposure into something regular users can trade, opening a door that has been closed. Democratized access is the pitch.

It also shows crypto platforms expanding beyond coins. Coinbase built its business on trading Bitcoin and other tokens, but offering exposure to private tech companies pushes it toward being a broader investing platform. Using blockchain tools to represent stakes in private firms is part of the tokenization trend, bringing traditional assets onto crypto rails. The exchange is chasing new products as trading fees swing.

The timing is deliberate. Both OpenAI and Anthropic have filed confidentially for IPOs and could list later this year, so interest in owning them is peaking right now, and a lot of the money leaving crypto has been chasing exactly these AI names. Coinbase offering pre-IPO exposure is a way to capture that demand rather than lose it. It meets investors where their attention already is.

The honest caveats are serious. Exposure to a private company through a platform is not the same as owning its stock, these products can be illiquid, hard to value, and carry extra fees and counterparty risk, and buying into companies at near-trillion-dollar valuations before they are public is speculative. Retail access to hot private deals has a mixed history. Wanting in is not the same as getting a good deal.

So Coinbase is turning the frenzy around AI IPOs into a product, letting regular investors bet on OpenAI and Anthropic early. Pre-IPO exposure, a tokenization play, and demand it is racing to capture. The access is new, the risks are real. Watch how these products are structured and whether investors actually understand what they are buying.