The US government ordered Anthropic to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 on Friday, citing national security concerns over a reported jailbreak vulnerability. The directive, delivered at 5:21 p.m. ET, required an immediate shutdown for all customers — not just foreign nationals — and the pre-IPO market reacted within hours.
The Anthropic perpetual contract on Hyperliquid, a cash-settled instrument tracking where traders expect the company's equity to price, dropped 3.7% on Saturday to roughly $1,627. The contract had been trading above $1,800 in the days following Fable 5's launch, and open interest sits near $8.6 million — small relative to the SpaceX perp but meaningful for a company that has not yet filed for an IPO.
Why it matters
Anthropics's pushback is the more significant story. The company says the government provided only verbal evidence of a narrow, previously known vulnerability — one it describes as essentially asking the model to read a codebase and identify software flaws, a task security defenders perform routinely. Anthropic also noted that OpenAI's GPT-5.5 can surface the same vulnerabilities without any bypass at all. Its core argument: applying this standard industry-wide "would essentially halt all new model deployments for all frontier model providers."
The tension is acute because Anthropic built its entire brand on safety-first AI development. Publicly disputing a national security directive on evidentiary grounds is a significant departure from that posture — and a signal that the company believes the government's bar, if left unchallenged, would be existential for the sector.
Frequently asked questions
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Why did Anthropic shut down Fable 5 and Mythos 5 rather than just restricting foreign access?
Although the government's directive initially required suspension for foreign nationals, Anthropic executed a full shutdown for all customers after receiving the order at 5:21 p.m. ET on Friday, citing the terms of the national security directive.
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How is Anthropic's IPO valuation affected by the government shutdown order?
The Anthropic perpetual contract on Hyperliquid — a proxy for pre-IPO equity pricing — fell 3.7% to roughly $1,627, down from post-launch highs above $1,800, reflecting trader concern about regulatory tail risk ahead of a potential public listing.
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What is Anthropic's core argument against the government's jailbreak finding?
Anthropic says the government provided only verbal evidence of a narrow, previously known vulnerability, and that OpenAI's GPT-5.5 can surface the same flaws without any bypass — arguing the standard, if applied broadly, would halt all frontier model deployments industry-wide.
CoinDesk