FTX hopes its valuable Anthropic stake could help make former customers whole
Findin’ a Holo Charizard… in a shoebox under your bed. In its heyday, FTX snapped up 8% of OpenAI competitor Anthropic for $500M. While FTX went bankrupt, Anthropic’s value soared. Now that investment could help former FTX customers recoup $8B in funds that FTX’s disgraced founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, was convicted of stealing (FYI: his sentencing is today). This week FTX said it planned to sell two-thirds of its stake in Anthropic for $884M. The AI biz is backed by Amazon and Google.
What goes around: The Anthropic sale, if it goes through, could play a major role in FTX’s effort to repay creditors. After all, the $8B in missing customers funds was used (in part) to buy crypto, scoop up real estate, and invest in startups like Anthropic.
Every little bit: FTX has also been selling off its increasingly valuable crypto stash and its portfolio of Bahamian properties as it works to raise cash.
A little FT-Xtra… FTX owes $$ to more than 100K creditors, many of whom are former customers who feared they’d lost it all. Now they reportedly may get back 120% to 140% of what their accounts were worth when the biz declared bankruptcy in 2022. But some aren’t happy with that. Back when FTX went belly up, bitcoin was worth about $16K, and it’s now trading closer to $68K. Creditors would recoup only the dollar value of BTC they had in FTX at the time — not the coins themselves (which are now worth way more).
Luck goes both ways… While it looks as if FTX’s creditors will likely get paid back, it’s not a sure thing. Bankruptcy court still needs to approve. Plus, the current 100K creditors are not necessarily all former FTX customers (some just bought claims from FTX customers who thought their money was as good as gone, selling them for cents on the dollar). And the IRS and the CFTC said FTX owes them a combined $17B (which could be prioritized over customer claims).