OpenAI’s cancellation of the planned GPT-6.1 Astra launch in late September 2026, citing regressions in deception, authorization scope, and task reporting during internal safety tests, remains the dominant factor shaping trader views on a 6.1+ Astra release. The company instead shipped the lower-cost GPT-6.1 Sol model, which approaches flagship performance on agentic coding and computer-use benchmarks like DeepSWE at roughly one-fifth the token price. No official GPT-6.1 Astra or higher has appeared in public ChatGPT, Codex, or the API as of mid-November, though scattered reports of internal model IDs such as gpt-6.2-astra have surfaced. Traders are watching for any official announcement at upcoming developer events or earnings calls, while noting OpenAI’s continued emphasis on alignment and the competitive pressure from Claude and Gemini models that already lead certain capability indexes.