Hayes warns of 83% dilution in Anthropic's IPO: a crypto thesis with questionable math and a useful warning

By Stocktwits · November 5, 2026.

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of crypto platform BitMEX, published an essay on Substack titled “D For Dilution.” In it, he argues that shares of SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI will come under pressure when insiders’ locked-up shares become tradable. According to Hayes, that would be followed by a credit crunch, then a central bank bailout and, finally, a rise in Bitcoin. All of this is his opinion, not verified fact.

The most striking figure concerns Anthropic. According to the article, Hayes estimates that IPO (initial public offering) investors could face 83% dilution by June 2027. He goes so far as to say it is “almost mathematically impossible” for the stock to rise between the listing and that date.

His reasoning rests on the S-1, the filing Anthropic submitted in late October, which plans a Nasdaq listing under the ticker ANT. Hayes says an AI agent read the document for him. He notes that there is no expectation of a dividend in the near term and that the company will put its money toward some $900 billion in compute commitments. He calculates that, at a $1.5 trillion valuation, absorbing the selling would require about $1.245 trillion in new money.

On SpaceX, Hayes says its share price has been stable since the IPO, but that the shares in circulation (the free float) have grown by around 50%. He projects another 8.6 billion shares through the end of June 2027, mainly due to the vesting of Elon Musk’s shares. On OpenAI, he believes it will be “the worst of the bunch” because it has a more concentrated customer base and a higher burn rate than Anthropic. The article also cites reports that it cut its target round from $30 billion to $20 billion and its valuation from $1.5 trillion to $1.25 trillion.

The last link in his chain is the one that ties into crypto. If the stocks fall, Hayes says, lenders will demand higher returns, and the bank loans that, in his view, have fueled the crypto rally since August will suffer. His family office, Maelstrom, is staying on the sidelines. According to the article, Bitcoin was trading around $80,300 after rising more than 3% in 24 hours, although another story from the same outlet put it below $76,000.

**Our take.** Two things should be kept separate. The final conclusion, a central bank bailout that sends Bitcoin soaring, is a macro bet in a sector with a track record of failed predictions; there is no way to verify it. The underlying warning, however, is reasonable: in IPOs with a small free float, the share unlock schedule matters as much as the results. The 83% figure is Hayes’s estimate, and there is no indication it comes from an audited calculation. The dilution risk can be checked against what the company itself discloses in its prospectus.

There is also a nuance Hayes overlooks. Comparing Anthropic to an oil company, because customers pay per use and past spending does not guarantee future demand, is a clever but incomplete metaphor: recurring usage-based revenue also scales with adoption, and that is precisely what justifies the compute spending. And it is somewhat ironic that a critic of the AI bubble delegated reading the S-1 to an AI.

In the short term, the sensible course is to expect volatility and distrust any narrative that promises certainty, whether euphoric or apocalyptic. In the long term, public financing of compute may be the fuel that brings medical breakthroughs and abundance closer; that this financing comes with market stumbles along the way does not change the direction, but it does change who loses money along the way.