FTX estate sold early stakes later worth billions

FTX’s bankruptcy estate sold early venture and token positions between 2023 and 2024 to raise cash for creditors. Several of those holdings later rose sharply in value, including a roughly 5% stake in Cursor that would be worth about $3 billion after SpaceX agreed in June 2026 to acquire Cursor in a $60 billion all-stock deal.

Alameda Research invested $200,000 in 2022 in Anysphere, the developer behind the AI coding tool Cursor, securing about a 5% stake. The estate sold that stake in 2023 at cost as part of a broader program of disposals to generate funds for creditor repayment. SpaceX exercised a call option and moved to close the acquisition in June 2026, producing the implied valuation that increases the former Alameda position into the multibillion-dollar range.

FTX had an early, large position in Anthropic after a roughly $500 million investment in 2021. The estate sold that holding in two court-approved tranches in 2024, taking about $884 million in March and about $452 million in June, roughly $1.3 billion in total. Anthropic later disclosed a $30 billion financing round at a $380 billion post-money valuation; at that valuation an 8% stake would be worth about $30.4 billion.

Emergent Fidelity Technologies, a vehicle linked to Sam Bankman‑Fried, bought roughly 7.6% of Robinhood in 2022 for about $648 million. Prosecutors later seized the shares and the U.S. Marshals Service sold a block of 55.3 million shares back to Robinhood in 2023 at $10.96 per share, for about $605.7 million. At Robinhood’s market capitalization near $87 billion, that block would be worth more than $5 billion.

The estate also sold roughly 30 million locked SOL tokens in 2024 under a court-approved process at about $64 each, with several institutional crypto firms among the buyers. SOL later reached a peak near $293 in early 2025 before falling to lower levels. In 2023 Mysten Labs bought back Sui equity and token warrants from the estate for about $96 million, close to the roughly $101 million the exchange had paid a year earlier.

John J. Ray III, who oversees the FTX estate, prioritized sales on a court timetable to raise cash for defrauded customers and to meet legal deadlines. Proceeds from the sales were used in creditor recoveries. Social media users and investors commented on the later valuations. One user wrote that Bankman‑Fried “knew how to trade with his client’s money, he just ran out of time.” Another investor noted the estate “wasn’t allowed to hold” certain positions while it followed the court-approved liquidation schedule.