New Crypto Exchange MNX Lets Traders Bet on AI Giants' Future Valuations

Futures contracts for OpenAI and Anthropic now trade on MNX

MNX, a newly launched cryptocurrency exchange (a digital platform where people trade digital assets), went live on Tuesday, October 13, offering futures contracts tied to private artificial intelligence companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, and Moonshot. These contracts allow traders to speculate on what these companies might be worth when they eventually go public.

The exchange was developed by former executives of Manifold Markets and built on the MegaETH blockchain (a type of shared digital ledger that records transactions). It raised $6.4 million from investors led by Village Global in June 2026.

How MNX contracts differ from other exchanges

Larger crypto exchanges OKX and Bitget already let traders bet on private AI company valuations. However, MNX takes a different approach.

Bitget offers perpetual futures, which are contracts that never expire and incur ongoing funding fees to keep them open. OKX similarly offers contracts without expiration dates, though it uses a different funding mechanism. MNX's contracts expire at the end of 2027 and carry no recurring funding fees.

Traders can use up to three times their available funds on MNX, which means they can increase both potential profits and potential losses.

How settlement prices are determined

Unlike traditional markets that rely on external price feeds, MNX determines prices based on trading activity on its own platform. If a company is still private when a contract expires, MNX uses publicly available valuations from funding rounds, investment funds, or secondary markets. As a last resort, MNX can set the settlement price itself, subject to a published review process.

This means a trader could end up settling their bet at a price that differs from what an investor might actually pay for private shares in a real transaction.

What Village Global and Manifold say

Max Killberg of Village Global, the lead investor, described AI as driving one of the largest investment cycles in history while noting that the financial infrastructure around it remains underdeveloped. The firm sees an opportunity to build financial markets around AI rather than simply backing another prediction market.

Stephen Gruggett, co-founder of Manifold Markets, told CoinDesk that MNX's approach is better suited for private companies like OpenAI and Anthropic because their shares trade infrequently and are hard to price accurately. He argued that perpetual futures based on illiquid, stale prices are easy to manipulate and can have very high and unpredictable funding rates.

What is confirmed and what is still uncertain

The following is confirmed: MNX is live and offers contracts tied to OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, and Moonshot. Contracts expire at the end of 2027 with no recurring funding fees. The exchange does not currently serve U.S. customers. The $6.4 million funding round led by Village Global closed in June.

What remains uncertain: MNX has said it plans to obtain the necessary licenses to serve U.S. customers but has not announced a timeline. The company also aims to expand its markets to cover the wider AI economy, including company revenue, employment, housing, the AI supply chain, and computing capacity, but has not detailed when or how these additional markets will launch.

Why this matters for AI investors

AI has attracted enormous capital flows, but access to these companies for individual investors has been limited. According to Bitcoin Suisse's Crypto Wealth Management Report 2026, the largest U.S. hyperscaler companies are expected to spend at least $800 billion on AI infrastructure this year and more than $1 trillion the following year. MNX represents one attempt to give investors a way to gain exposure to these private companies before they go public.

Sources

• CoinDesk

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