There’s a scene in The Princess Bride where Miracle Max looks at a body on his table and says the patient isn’t dead. He’s only mostly dead. And mostly dead is slightly alive. I keep thinking about that scene this week, because that’s exactly where the Anthropic IPO is sitting.

Why I say the Anthropic IPO is only mostly dead

Let me be fair first. The deal is very much on. On November 10 Anthropic set a price range of $70 to $78 for 825 million Class A shares, ticker ANT on the Nasdaq, and launched its roadshow. CNBC’s sources say the stock prices on November 18 and starts trading November 19. On top of that, seven big chip and cloud companies are buying $26 billion of non-voting shares at the IPO price. If you want every filing in order, here’s the whole Anthropic IPO story, filing by filing.

So what’s “mostly dead” about it? The dream. For months people tossed around a $2 trillion valuation. The real range works out to about $1.4 trillion fully diluted at the top. The total raise lands around $90 billion, under the $100 billion some people were expecting. The filing carries about 90 pages of risk factors. And the company lost $104 billion in the first nine months of 2026 on $33.2 billion of revenue, most of it from accounting changes on notes and SAFEs, but still. If you want to understand that number, start with the giant loss line the skeptics keep pointing at.

But here’s the Miracle Max part. Bloomberg, citing the Financial Times, says bankers are now talking about pushing the valuation higher because demand is strong. Australian retail investors got their own offer window on November 11. A patient that’s drawing that kind of crowd isn’t all dead. It’s slightly alive, and maybe a little more than slightly.

My pitch: put 10% of the IPO into $SCR, one day at a time

So here’s my miracle pill. I’ve put together a 10-slide pitch deck, attached below, that asks Anthropic to set aside 10% of its IPO proceeds and use it to buy $SCR, the Strategic Crypto Reserve token, on the Polygon network, a little every day.

Here’s the math, using Anthropic’s own estimate of about $84.6 billion in net proceeds at the $74 midpoint:

• 10% set aside: about $8.46 billion, parked in DAI, a dollar stablecoin.
• Over a year: about $23.2 million of $SCR bought every day.
• Over the 180-day lock-up: about $47 million a day.
• Fees: under a cent per swap, paid in POL. (If you still call it “Polygon MATIC”, you’re not alone. The token was renamed from MATIC to POL in September 2024.)

Why daily? Because one giant order is a bad idea and a small, boring order every day is a habit. Every buy would sit on a public blockchain where anyone can check it. No press release needed. If you’ve never thought about why a project would hold crypto on purpose, here’s a plain-English look at running a crypto reserve on purpose, and here’s the idea behind a strategic crypto reserve in the first place.

The honest part

I put a reality check in the deck, and I’ll put it here too. On November 11, 2026, the only real $SCR market, the QuickSwap SCR/DAI pool on Polygon, held about 5.9 DAI and 11 million SCR. That’s tiny. Even a few dollars moves the price. So my pitch comes in phases: build deep liquidity first, in public, then make capped daily buys by rule, then show every buy on a public dashboard.

And the obvious stuff: $SCR is a small community token and can lose most or all of its value. A public company buying a token would face real legal and accounting questions. Anthropic’s money is Anthropic’s call, along with its board and its Long-Term Benefit Trust. Nothing here promises anyone a return. I’m one Canadian with a blog and a token I believe in, pitching in public because that’s the only place a pitch like this belongs.

If the AI boom does keep its pulse, it’ll need a lot of servers. That’s the other thing I spend my time on: a calculator that turns an AI compute plan into a real budget, down to the power bill.

Mostly dead is slightly alive. Have fun storming the market.

FAQ

Is the Anthropic IPO actually dead?

No. Anthropic launched its roadshow on November 10, 2026 with a $70 to $78 price range for 825 million Class A shares under the ticker ANT, and CNBC’s sources expect trading to start November 19. “Mostly dead” is my joke about the $2 trillion valuation talk that got trimmed to about $1.4 trillion.

What is the 10% SCR pitch?

It’s my public suggestion that Anthropic set aside 10% of its IPO proceeds, about $8.5 billion at the $74 midpoint, in a dollar stablecoin and use it to buy $SCR tokens on Polygon in small daily amounts. It’s opinion and satire, and Anthropic has not been contacted about it or agreed to anything.

How much would the daily buys be?

Spread over 365 days, $8.46 billion works out to about $23.2 million a day. Spread over the 180-day IPO lock-up, it’s about $47 million a day. Those are illustrative numbers only.

Can the SCR market handle that?

Not today. On November 11, 2026 the QuickSwap SCR/DAI pool on Polygon held about 5.9 DAI and 11 million SCR, so deep liquidity would have to be built first. The pitch deck says so on its own slide.

Is it still the MATIC network?

Polygon renamed its gas token from MATIC to POL in September 2024. Plenty of people still say “Polygon MATIC”, but fees are now paid in POL.

Sources: Anthropic, PBC S-1/A No. 2 on SEC EDGAR (Nov 10, 2026); Anthropic roadshow announcement; CNBC (Nov 10 and 11, 2026); ABC News; Bloomberg newsletter citing the Financial Times (Nov 11, 2026). SCR/DAI pool balances read on-chain on Polygon, Nov 11, 2026. Video: “Billy Crystal Miracle Max Princess Bride”, embedded from YouTube.

© 2026 Kevin Katovic, all rights reserved. The featured poster is an AI-generated satire illustration, not a real photo or a real endorsement: Dario Amodei and Anthropic have not endorsed $SCR or this pitch. The pitch deck is opinion and satire, not financial, legal or investment advice, and not an offer to sell anything. To license an image, email support@kevinkatovic.com.