US Government Sold Seized FTX Anthropic Shares for $627M. They’re Now Worth $3.94 Billion

In a striking example of how quickly valuations can change in the AI boom, the US government sold a large block of Anthropic shares it seized from the failed FTX exchange for more than $600 million just a year ago. While that seems like a big sum, the same shares are now worth close to $4 billion, according to the latest valuations. 

Crypto commentator The Martini Guy tweeted regarding the development:

Image Source: X

Anthropic’s Incoming Initial Public Offering (IPO)

Anthropic recently disclosed the move in its S-1 IPO filing, which shows its current ownership structure. The company is gearing up for one of the largest IPOs in stock market history, targeting a valuation between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion. Its Claude LLM is considered the world’s top AI assistant, and progress has improved by leaps and bounds.

The IPO has driven a major surge in the company’s valuation, and American authorities sold 453,900 Series B shares for $627 million, much to the disappointment of FTX creditors, who waited long enough for the settlement.

According to the S-1 IPO filing, Anthropic bought back the Series B shares at that valuation and offered them to nine undisclosed whitelist buyers, who jumped at the opportunity. The shares are now worth more than 6x what they were at the time of the previous sale, just a year earlier. 

It is interesting how things can change so quickly in the space of one year. The episode highlights the timing risks of forced asset sales and the explosive valuation growth of AI companies in recent memory.  

FTX Saga Wrapping Up

FTX’s dramatic fraudulent collapse in 2022 posed a difficult task for American authorities. While the exchange itself was illiquid and had more liabilities than assets, the company had also invested heavily in a string of upcoming technology companies, including Anthropic. Creditors were content to receive a swift recovery rather than wait for an uncertain IPO.

However, the situation has changed significantly since then, and creditors must now be reeling from the company’s meteoric rise. It is a textbook lesson for future insolvency cases involving high-growth technology holdings.

Anthropic’s NASDAQ listing is expected in the coming months, but before then, investment firms need to arrive at a valuation. It remains to be seen whether it will exceed the initial enterprise valuation of $1.77 trillion set by the SpaceX IPO.