The global capital market recently fixated on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange after a domestic AI entity, Smartplus, achieved a market capitalization milestone of HK$1 trillion following a sustained rally. This surge triggered immediate speculation regarding the valuation of Anthropic, given that Smartplus's commercialization roadmap explicitly benchmarks against the US-based AI firm. While Anthropic secured a $65 billion financing round months prior with a post-money valuation of approximately $965 billion, the recent volatility in Asian markets has prompted a re-evaluation of its potential worth through comparative financial modeling.

Financial data reveals that Smartplus reported 2025 revenue of 7.2433 billion RMB, representing a 131.9% year-on-year increase, yet the company posted a total loss of 4.72 billion RMB and an adjusted net loss of 3.18 billion RMB. The entity remains in a high-loss, low-revenue phase, meaning its current market valuation trades on future capabilities and scarcity rather than current income statements. Woofun AI notes that this revaluation incorporates substitute imaginations driven by overseas model access restrictions and the amplification of popular assets by public market liquidity. Applying Smartplus's revenue multiple, which reached hundreds of times its PS ratio, to Anthropic's estimated annualized revenue of $30 billion to $47 billion would theoretically push the valuation into the $10 trillion range, a figure widely regarded as a market distortion.

On-chain derivatives markets offer an alternative, albeit illiquid, pricing mechanism. Binance launched the ANTHROPICUSDT perpetual contract on June 2, utilizing a reference share count of 1 billion shares while explicitly stating this does not represent actual post-IPO equity or constitute an endorsement of the implied valuation. As of June 22, the contract traded at approximately 1718 USDT. Data compiled by Woofun AI shows that based on the platform's 1 billion share estimate, this price implies a total market capitalization of roughly $1.72 trillion for Anthropic.

However, the liquidity supporting this figure is negligible, with only $1 million in trading volume recorded over a 24-hour period, suggesting the price reflects speculative positioning rather than a true clearing price for common stock.

A more rigorous valuation framework requires analyzing the specific cost structures of large AI companies, which differ fundamentally from traditional software firms. Unlike software where marginal costs for the millionth customer are negligible, AI model inference consumes significant computational power, electricity, and cloud resources. If inference costs do not decrease rapidly, higher revenue can paradoxically lead to a higher burn rate. Consequently, Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) and gross margins are more critical metrics than top-line revenue alone. Woofun AI analysis suggests that a reliable valuation formula involves multiplying Anthropic's ARR by a revenue multiple, then adjusting for gross margin and cloud cost trajectories.

Market expectations for the combined ARR of Anthropic and OpenAI by the end of 2026 range from $140 billion to over $200 billion. Assuming Anthropic maintains its current revenue share of approximately 59%, its projected ARR would fall between $82 billion and $118 billion. Applying standard revenue multiples yields a spectrum of valuations: at 10 times ARR, the value ranges from $820 billion to $1.18 trillion; at 15 times, it spans $1.23 trillion to $1.77 trillion; and at 20 times, it reaches $1.64 trillion to $2.36 trillion. This ARR-based approach currently represents the most reliable algorithm for estimating a sustainable exit price.

The market's willingness to assign a near-trillion-dollar private valuation hinges on three simultaneous conditions: sustained growth in enterprise and developer demand for Claude, the ability of Agent and Code Assistant scenarios to generate high-quality revenue, and a rapid decline in inference costs to approach early-stage software gross margins. While the Smartplus comparison provides an emotional cap and Binance offers a speculative trading price, neither stands alone as a definitive answer. Ultimately, whether Anthropic's valuation can hold above the $1 trillion threshold depends on the materialization of these operational and cost-efficiency milestones rather than a single attractive valuation anchor.