Benjamin Cowen says Anthropic’s massive upcoming IPO could be contributing to Bitcoin’s decline as BTC begins tracking its pre-SpaceX IPO pattern.
Bitcoin’s latest decline may have an unusual source of pressure: investors raising cash ahead of Anthropic’s potentially massive initial public offering.
Into The Cryptoverse founder Benjamin Cowen raised the possibility as Bitcoin trades around $73,500, saying major IPOs can encourage investors to free up capital that would otherwise remain deployed across assets such as Bitcoin. CoinMarketCap currently places BTC near $73,503.
Perhaps the reason Bitcoin is falling (if you need one) is due to the upcoming Anthropic IPO.
You can see Bitcoin's performance going into the SpaceX IPO (blue line).
Investors will often try to free up capital for major IPOs. https://t.co/zNPlq0KAAM pic.twitter.com/fx6VvST58p
— Benjamin Cowen (@benjamincowen) November 11, 2026
He pointed to Bitcoin’s performance surrounding the SpaceX IPO earlier this year, adding that investors “will often try to free up capital for major IPOs.”
Bitcoin Fell About 20% Into the SpaceX IPO
Bitcoin’s performance around the SpaceX listing provides the basis for the comparison.
Using the BTC price 30 days before each IPO as the 0% starting point, Bitcoin initially remained close to flat before beginning a sustained decline ahead of SpaceX’s debut.
By the time SpaceX went public on June 12, 2026, Bitcoin’s normalized return had fallen to roughly -20% from the 30-day starting point.
SpaceX officially began trading on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX on June 12, after pricing its IPO at $135 per share. The base offering involved 555.56 million shares, equivalent to approximately $75 billion before the underwriters’ additional allocation.
Bitcoin closed that day near $63,543, according to historical CoinMarketCap data.
The decline did not immediately end when the IPO arrived. Bitcoin briefly recovered after the listing before its normalized return deteriorated toward approximately -26% around 18 days after the IPO. It subsequently recovered part of those losses and finished the 30-day post-IPO window around 19% below the original baseline.
Anthropic Setup Is Starting to Resemble the Same Pattern
The Anthropic comparison currently begins 30 days ahead of an assumed Nov. 19 listing date.
That date is now more than a hypothetical reference. Anthropic officially launched its IPO roadshow on Nov. 10, offering 825 million Class A shares at an expected price of $70 to $78 per share. The company has applied to trade on Nasdaq under the ticker ANT.
Reuters reports that trading is expected to begin on Nov. 19, with the offering potentially raising as much as $64.4 billion and valuing Anthropic at up to roughly $1.4 trillion on a fully diluted basis.
Bitcoin is currently roughly 11% below the normalized level from 30 days before the expected Anthropic listing.
The decline is therefore heading in the same broad direction as the SpaceX period, although Bitcoin had already fallen considerably more at a comparable stage of the SpaceX setup.
Why a Massive IPO Could Pressure Bitcoin
The mechanism Cowen is highlighting is capital competition.
Large institutional and wealthy investors typically operate with finite capital. Ahead of an unusually large IPO, some may increase cash balances, reduce other holdings or rebalance portfolios to participate in the offering.
Anthropic’s proposed deal is large enough for that possibility to matter. At the upper end of its price range, the Claude developer could raise tens of billions of dollars from public-market investors.
Selling liquid assets such as stocks or Bitcoin is one way investors could create that liquidity.
However, there is currently no evidence establishing that Anthropic’s IPO is the primary cause of Bitcoin’s decline. Bitcoin is simultaneously dealing with bearish technical momentum, broader risk-asset weakness and the loss of several important support levels.
The Crypto Basic recently noted that Bitcoin remains below its falling 20-day and 50-day exponential moving averages, while another analysis identified $73,000 as a key support region before a possible deeper decline toward $60,000.
Cowen has also maintained throughout 2026 that Bitcoin is operating within a bear-market structure.
Nov. 19 Becomes an Interesting Bitcoin Test
The comparison now creates a clear date to watch.
If Bitcoin continues weakening into Anthropic’s expected Nov. 19 debut and subsequently stabilizes once the IPO is completed, the capital-rotation argument would gain additional circumstantial support.
A continued decline well beyond the IPO, however, would strengthen the case that broader crypto and macro conditions—not a single stock offering—remain the dominant forces.
For now, Bitcoin’s pre-Anthropic trajectory is moving in the same direction as its pre-SpaceX performance, but with a smaller normalized loss.