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FTX Exchange No Longer Have A Stake In AI Startup Anthropic – Crypto News

Published

2 years ago

June 2, 2024

Dripp

As of June 1, FTX Exchange no longer holds a stake in Artificial Intelligence (AI) firm Anthropic.

FTX Gains $800M From Sales of Anthropic Stake

The FTX Estate, led by John Ray III has offloaded its remaining stake in Anthropic, per the firm’s latest filing with the bankruptcy court.

Before this time, FTX had only 15 billion Anthropic shares left, with each going for about $30. This sums up to a total of $450 million in proceeds. It is worth noting that each share in this second sale was sold at the same price as the first selloff carried out back in March.

From inception, the Bahamian-headquartered exchange made a huge investment of $500 million in the valuable AI company. This was way back in 2021. However, its series of offloading, including this current one, has fetched it up to $1.3 billion. This brings the profit netted from its Anthropic investment to approximately $800 million.

Noteworthy, the ongoing FTX bankruptcy case forced the embattled firm to consider the sales of its Anthropic stake. The legal costs, administration costs and all other operational fees were piling up in their millions. Additionally, affected creditors in the FTX implosion were waiting to be reimbursed as promised. Riding on these factors, the firm was left with no other option than to request authorization from the bankruptcy court to proceed with the sale of its stake.

A Necessary Selloff

FTX perceived the Anthropic stake liquidation process as the best at ensuring that all payments are made to creditors and no parties are left at a disadvantage.

In a matter of weeks, the Supreme Bankruptcy Court of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware approved the motion. For its first sale, FTX reached an agreement to sell $884 million worth of the Anthropic shares to a group of institutional investors including ATIC Third International Investment Company LLC and Jane Street.

In this latest sales round, global venture capital fund G Squared was the top buyer. G Squared purchased 4.5 million shares which is about one-third of the remaining shares for $135 million. The other 20 buyers who participated in the sales were basically venture capital funds.

Meanwhile, the cost of the FTX bankruptcy, both legal and administrative fees, has exceeded $700 million. Ray III still has plans to repay FTX customers very soon.