1. FTX Anthropic stake: from $1.34 billion to more than $30 billion
The FTX Anthropic stake that the collapsed exchange's bankruptcy estate sold in 2024 for roughly $1.34 billion would be worth more than $30 billion at the $70 to $78 per-share range Anthropic has proposed for its Nasdaq listing. The estate sold the shares in two rounds that year, at about $30 apiece, before the AI developer's valuation soared.
The comparison puts a number on one of the more striking what-ifs to come out of the FTX bankruptcy. A position bought for $500 million in 2021 turned into an $800 million profit for the estate, a strong outcome by most standards, yet a fraction of what the same block of shares would command if it were still held when Anthropic's stock begins trading.
The arithmetic rests on Anthropic's amended registration statement, which sets out the price range, along with the company's 10-for-1 stock split and the number of shares FTX once owned. Final pricing has not yet been set, and the value of the former stake will ultimately depend on where the shares price and trade.
2. How FTX came to own part of Anthropic
In 2021, FTX and its affiliated trading firm, Alameda Research, put $500 million into Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind the Claude family of models. At the time, Anthropic was a young research lab, and the investment was among the largest bets the crypto group made outside the digital-asset industry.
FTX collapsed in November 2022 after it emerged that customer deposits had been used to support Alameda's trading and other ventures. The exchange filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and a new management team took control of its remaining assets with the goal of recovering as much value as possible for customers and other creditors.
The Anthropic shares were among the most valuable holdings the estate inherited. Unlike crypto tokens, which could be sold on open markets, the stake consisted of private company stock with no public trading venue. Turning it into cash required negotiated sales to institutional buyers, subject to the approval of the bankruptcy court.
3. How the 2024 sales were structured
The estate sold its entire Anthropic position through two transactions in 2024. The first, completed across March and April, brought in about $884 million. The second, in June, added roughly $452 million, bringing total proceeds to about $1.34 billion.
Both rounds were priced at around $30 per share, based on the share count that applied before Anthropic's later stock split. The single largest block, worth about $500 million, went to ATIC Third International Investment, an entity linked to Mubadala, the sovereign investment company of Abu Dhabi. The remaining shares were spread among a range of investment funds.
Measured against the original $500 million investment, the sales delivered a gain of roughly $800 million. For an estate tasked with repaying customers who had lost access to their funds, that was a meaningful contribution, and the sale converted a hard-to-value private holding into cash that could be distributed.
4. What is Anthropic's IPO price range?
Anthropic has proposed an initial public offering price of $70 to $78 per share, according to its amended registration statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company plans to list on Nasdaq under the ticker ANT.
At the top of that range, Anthropic would carry a fully diluted valuation of about $1.4 trillion, placing it among the most valuable companies ever to go public. Alongside the offering, a group of investors including Google and Nvidia has agreed to buy $26 billion of stock in a concurrent private placement.
The proposed valuation represents a further step up from Anthropic's most recent private funding round. In May 2026, the company raised capital at a valuation of $965 billion. The IPO range implies that public-market investors are being asked to value the business well above that level only months later.
5. How much is FTX's former Anthropic stake worth now?
At Anthropic's proposed IPO price, the shares FTX once held would be worth more than $30 billion. After the company's 10-for-1 stock split, the former FTX position equals about 445.4 million shares, and even the bottom of the $70 to $78 range values that block above the $30 billion mark.
That figure is more than 22 times the $1.34 billion the estate collected, and more than 60 times the $500 million FTX and Alameda originally invested. The buyers who paid about $30 per share in 2024, equivalent to roughly $3 on a post-split basis, are now looking at a holding that the IPO math values many times higher.
The calculation is a snapshot rather than a realized gain. The estimate assumes the shares price within the proposed range, and the value of any stock can move sharply once trading begins. Large holders may also be subject to lock-up periods that restrict when they can sell after a listing.
6. How the 10-for-1 split affects the comparison
A stock split changes the number of shares in circulation without changing the overall value of a company. In a 10-for-1 split, every existing share becomes ten shares, and the price of each one falls to a tenth of its earlier level. Shareholders end up with ten times as many shares, each worth proportionally less.
That is why the roughly $30 per-share price paid in 2024 cannot be compared directly with the $70 to $78 IPO range. The 2024 transactions took place before the split, so the buyers effectively paid about $3 for each share as counted today. Measured on the same basis, the proposed IPO price is more than 20 times higher than the price at which the estate sold.
Adjusting for the split is also how the former FTX holding reaches about 445.4 million shares. The figure does not reflect any purchase of additional stock. It is the same block of shares the estate sold, restated in post-split terms so it can be valued against the IPO range.
7. Why the gap matters for FTX creditors
For FTX creditors, the difference between $1.34 billion and a value above $30 billion is difficult to ignore. The bankruptcy process has already returned substantial sums to customers, but the Anthropic sale illustrates how much additional value was available to anyone able to hold the shares through the AI boom.
The estate's decision to sell was made under very different conditions. In 2024, Anthropic was valued far below today's levels, there was no clear timetable for a public listing and the estate was under pressure to raise cash for distributions. Bankruptcy estates generally aim to convert assets into money for creditors in a reasonable time frame rather than to hold speculative positions for years in the hope of further gains.
Customer claims in the FTX case were also tied to the dollar value of their holdings at the time of the November 2022 bankruptcy filing, a structure that has been a recurring source of frustration for creditors who watched crypto prices climb afterward. The Anthropic stake adds a non-crypto example to that list of missed upside.
8. Why bankruptcy estates sell private holdings
Private company stock is among the hardest assets for a bankruptcy estate to manage. There is no daily market price, transfers usually require the company's consent and buyers must be found through direct negotiation. Its value on paper can also change significantly between funding rounds, making it difficult to know what the holding is truly worth at any given moment.
For those reasons, estates tend to favor selling such positions once a reasonable price is on the table, rather than holding them in the hope of a public listing that may be years away. The approach gives creditors certainty and allows distributions to move forward, at the cost of giving up any further appreciation.
The FTX estate followed that path with Anthropic. The sales locked in a gain of roughly $800 million on the original investment, and the proceeds became part of the pool of money available to repay customers. What no one could know in 2024 was how quickly the value of artificial intelligence companies would rise over the following two years.
9. The early buyers stand to benefit
The investors who bought the shares from the estate are the clearest beneficiaries of the revaluation. The entity linked to Mubadala, which took the largest single block, paid around $500 million for a position that, at Anthropic's proposed price, would be worth many times that amount.
The trade highlights a familiar dynamic in distressed sales. Buyers who can provide immediate cash to a seller under pressure often secure favorable terms, and when the underlying asset continues to grow, the gains accrue to them rather than to the original owner. In this case, the timing coincided with a period in which demand for artificial intelligence companies accelerated dramatically.
10. What happens next for the Anthropic IPO
The $70 to $78 range in Anthropic's filing is a preliminary estimate. IPO price ranges are routinely revised as underwriters gauge demand from institutional investors, and the final price can land above, within or below the initial range depending on market conditions.
A valuation of up to $1.4 trillion would put Anthropic in rare territory for a newly listed company. Any change to the price range, or to broader market sentiment toward technology stocks before the listing, would shift the implied value of the stake FTX once owned.
The next milestone is final pricing of Anthropic's offering, followed by the start of trading on Nasdaq under the ANT ticker. Once the stock is listed, the market price will replace the IPO range as the measure of what the former FTX stake is worth.
For FTX creditors, the outcome will not change what they receive, since the estate's sale closed in 2024. It will, however, settle how large the missed opportunity turned out to be, and it is likely to remain one of the most cited examples of how timing shaped the financial legacy of the exchange's collapse.