Cathie Wood Just Put OpenAI and Anthropic Onchain: Private AI Is Going Tokenized
The most coveted private tech stakes in the world, OpenAI and Anthropic, are about to live on a blockchain.
ARK Invest and tokenization platform Securitize have partnered to bring the ARK Venture Fund onchain, starting with Ethereum. That means retail and institutional investors holding crypto wallets could soon get exposure to pre-IPO AI giants that have been locked behind venture capital gates for years. This is not a drill.
What's Actually Happening Here
The ARK Venture Fund already holds positions in some of the most valuable private companies on the planet. Tokenizing it means fractional ownership of that fund can be represented as a digital asset, transferred onchain, and potentially traded with far fewer friction points than traditional private equity structures allow.
Securitize is the infrastructure layer making this possible. The firm has already tokenized real-world assets for BlackRock and Hamilton Lane, so this is not a startup experiment. This is institutional-grade tokenization hitting one of the most talked-about fund managers in the world.
Why This Is Bigger Than It Looks
The private AI market is essentially closed to anyone who is not a venture fund, a sovereign wealth fund, or a billionaire. OpenAI's last valuation hit $157 billion. Anthropic raised at a $61 billion valuation. Normal investors have had zero direct path in.
Tokenization changes that math. If ARK and Securitize pull this off cleanly, they create a template where any high-profile private fund can offer onchain exposure. The implications for DeFi collateral, yield strategies, and portfolio diversification are enormous and largely being ignored by the market right now.
ARK also signaled this is just the beginning. After Ethereum, the fund could expand to other chains, meaning Solana, Base, or any chain with real liquidity could eventually host private AI exposure as a tradeable asset.
The Friction That Still Exists
Tokenized fund shares are still securities. Accreditation requirements, jurisdictional restrictions, and redemption mechanics will all shape who actually gets access. This is not a memecoin you can ape into at 2am. But the direction of travel is clear: the wall between TradFi's most exclusive assets and onchain capital is cracking.
What Crypto Holders Should Watch
Keep your eyes on Securitize's Ethereum activity and any announcements around which chains ARK expands to next. If this fund gains traction, competing asset managers will move fast to tokenize their own private equity exposure. The real trade here is not ARK itself. It is the tokenization infrastructure plays and the chains that win the real-world asset race. Ethereum has first-mover advantage today. That could change quickly.