FTXâs Anthropic Bet: A đČ28B âWhat If?â
This might go down as one of the most painful missed wins in tech history.
Before the collapseâŠ
Before the court filingsâŠ
Before the forced liquidationsâŠ
FTX quietly made a monster bet on AI.
The Original Bet
In an early funding round, FTX invested $500 million into Anthropic, acquiring roughly 8% of the company.
At the time, Anthropic was:
A little-known AI lab
Competing with OpenAI
Focused on alignment, safety, and large language models
It looked bold.
It looked risky.
It looked⊠speculative.
But it was early â and it was right.
âïž Bankruptcy Changes Everything
Then FTX collapsed.
During bankruptcy proceedings, liquidity mattered more than vision.
Assets werenât judged on future potential â only on what could be sold now.
FTX was forced to liquidate two-thirds of its Anthropic stake, selling it for approximately $884 million.
On paper, that looks like a win:
$500M in
$884M out
But thatâs where the story gets brutal.
đ The $28 Billion âWhat Ifâ
Fast forward to today.
If Anthropicâs recent funding round closes at the rumored valuation, that original 8% stake would now be worth approximately:
đ„ $28 BILLION
Let that sink in.
A $500M investment
Turned into a potential $28B asset
Gone â not because it failed
But because it had to be sold too early
This isnât a bad bet.
This is a great bet destroyed by bad risk management.
The True Cost: Opportunity Lost
FTX didnât lose money on Anthropic.
It lost time.
It lost optionality.
It lost the ability to let compounding do what compounding does best.
From a potential $28B generational win
To a forced sale under bankruptcy pressure â
That gap is the real loss.
Lessons the Market Wonât Forget
This story isnât just about FTX.
Itâs about:
Leverage without discipline
Liquidity risk killing long-term vision
Being right â and still losing
In markets, timing and survival matter as much as insight.
You can pick the future⊠And still fail if you canât stay solvent.$FTT
