Forget about SpaceX, Bytedance or Anthropic. Opeli just jumped over with one move, becoming the biggest startup on the planet. Quotation? Half a trillion USD! To make it clear – it is more than all the most important cryptocurrency companies combined.
A transaction that has changed the balance of power
Bloomberg reports that the current and former operai employees sold shares worth USD 6.6 billion as part of secondary emissions. Powers such as Thrive Capital, Softbank Group Corp., Dragoneer Investment Group, MGX fund from Abu Dhabi and T.Rowe Price joined the group of investors. Result? The valuation reached an astronomical USD 500 billion.
For comparison, Spacex Elona Musk, who has previously wielded the palm of priority, is worth “only” USD 400 billion. Bytedance? USD 220 billion. Anthropic, direct competitor OPENAI? USD 183 billion. The differences are brutal and show how huge capital flows today towards artificial intelligence.
Where in all this blockchain?
Here it begins to get really interesting. Although OpenAi is not a blockchain company, its valuation reveals something important – the growing penetration of the world AI and Krypto. Both ecosystems are increasingly seen as the foundations of future digital infrastructure. And both attract gigantic money.
However, to maintain the proportions: the largest cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, has a market capitalization of around USD 89 billion. This is a solid value, but it is still far from half -llion OpenAI. Even the most promising cryptocurrency projects – Ripple, Circle, Binance, did not break the USD 100 billion barriers.
However, there is one player who can be a real challenge for OpenAI -Tether.
Tether – quiet power in the shade
Jon Ma, CEO Artemis, stated in June that if Tether decided to IPO, his valuation could reach USD 515 billion. This would place the issuer of the largest Stablecoin in the world in 19th place among the largest public companies.
Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, reacted with his characteristic confidence. He called USD 515 billion “a beautiful number”, but at the same time he considered it “somewhat underestimated”, taking into account the treasury of Bitcoin and gold that the company has. He also added that Tether has no need to enter the stock exchange – and it’s hardly surprising, since the company generates gigantic profits without having to reveal financial details in public.
OpenAI capitalization can be impressive, but in the crypto world there are entities that no longer have to prove anything to investors. They generate value quietly, in the background, building infrastructure on which an increasing number of global transactions are based. In the case of OPENAI, the main expectations of investors are based on the promise of the soon achieving the level of Aga (general artificial intelligence). Chatgpt-5 was supposed to be Aga … but it didn’t work out, so we start the race again, and investors pump another billion USD.
AI + Stablecoin agents = future?
The synergy between AI and Krypto can already be observed in practice. Mike Novogratz, CEO Galaxy Digital, in September last year predicted that AI agents would become the largest Stablecoin users. And they were not idle words.
Data CEX.IO Research from the third quarter of 2025 show that over 70% of Stablecoin transactions are related to bot activity. This is a huge percentage and proof that the automation of payments becomes a real trend. AI agents need fast, cheap and global means of payment, and stablecouins perfectly meet these criteria.
Galaxy Digital does not stop at theorizing. In August, the company obtained a loan worth USD 1.4 billion to accelerate the construction of the Helios AI data center in Texas. It is expected that it will generate over billion USD per year, supporting Coreweave operations in the field of AI and high -performance calculations (HPC).
What does this mean for blockchain?
Opeli has proved that AI is not the future, it is the present, with huge capital and even greater potential. But blockchain is not lagging behind. Stablecoin becomes infrastructure for autonomous systems. AI agents need blockchain to pay, verify identity and enforce of contracts. It’s complementarity.
Openai valuation at USD 500 billion is not a threat to cryptocurrencies, but a signal that capital flows where the future is being built. And this future (we want this or not) will be a hybrid AI and Blockchain. Who in this race will be a leader and who provided the infrastructure? Both OpenAI and Tether show that the Erа Giants are just beginning. And it will be a fascinating spectacle.
