- FTX has paused the sale of its stake in Anthropic, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) firm.
- The AI boom attracted several buyers towards the sale as it is one of the biggest investments by the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange.
FTX is a cryptocurrency exchange offering liquidity and transacting of cryptocurrency and tokens. The company paused the sales of a $500 million stake in the AI startup firm, Anthropic. Buying Anthropic is one of the biggest investments made by the cryptocurrency exchange, apart from an investment of $1.5 billion in Genesis Digital.
Anthropic is an AI safety and research firm founded in 2021 generating research and developing reliable AI systems.
“The bidders were told about the pause as people are familiar with the matter”, stated Perella Weinberg, the Investment bank handling FTX’s bankruptcy.
The main reason behind the pause is the expectation of FTX to sell the stake for nine figures.
However, there is no official announcement made by FTX or their partners regarding the sale halt and the announcement is made by Perella Weinberg patterns, privately, without disclosing any details.
FTX and Alameda invested around $500 million in the AI firm in November 2022 before bankruptcy and are expecting to earn more on time of selling.
The value of the firm is around $4.6 billion and raised to $450 million in May due to its AI bot and participation in Google, Sound Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, and Zoom Ventures, and is expected to give tough competition to ChatGPT.
FTX to divest its stake in other companies
The cryptocurrency exchange is selling its stake to other firms as part of its ongoing bankruptcy processes. FTX sold its stake in Mysten Labs for $96 million, the developer of the Sui blockchain, in March 2023 and the deal was finally completed in April 2023.
Another divest is to sell LedgerX, a crypto derivatives trading platform. In April, FTX sold its stake in LedgerX for $50 million which was approved in May 2023. FTX also tried to sell its stake in VC firm Sequoia Capital. However, the status of the deal is unclear now and it is valued at $45 million in March 20223.
Based on the court filing, around $8.7 billion in customer deposits were misused by FTX which filed for bankruptcy in November 2022. The scandal has gone down as the biggest crypto-related alleged fraud in history.
Emphasizing the current situation, the delay of the sale further postponed the efforts to recover an estimated $2 billion. Cryptocurrency Exchange’s bankruptcy team said that it had recovered $7 billion out of the $8.7 billion owed to consumers.
“The CEO of FTX alleged investments in luxurious real estate in the Bahamas, charitable donations, and venture investments”, stated John Ray.
As a result, the cryptocurrency exchange is undergoing bankruptcy whereas the founder of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried is facing criminal charges.
Conclusion
FTX, undergoing bankruptcy, paused the sale of a $500 million stake in AI-based firm, Anthropic. In November 2022, FTX and Alameda invested around $500 million in Anthropic and were expected to sell the stake for nine figures, on bankruptcy. The cryptocurrency exchange also divesting its stake in other firms including Mysten Labs, LedgerX, and VC firm Sequoia Capital. Presently, FTX is undergoing bankruptcy and the CEO is facing criminal charges.
