SBF Sold Too Early: These Exited Bets Later Turned Into Multi-Billion Winners
The similar enterprise bets that helped construct Sam Bankman-Fried’s empire have grow to be a case research in promoting too early.
As the FTX chapter property raced to repay collectors, it offloaded early stakes in firms that went on to rank among the many most precious names in AI and fintech, typically for a tiny fraction of what they might later command.
“That man knew how one can commerce along with his consumer’s cash, he simply ran out of time,” one person quipped.
The Cursor stake bought at value
Alameda Research wrote a $200,000 verify into Anysphere, the maker of AI coding software Cursor, throughout a 2022 pre-seed spherical.
With this, they secured roughly 5% of the corporate, based on Forbes’ accounting of the agency’s startup holdings.
In 2023, the property bought that place again at value, treating a then-obscure developer software as a minor asset to clear.
The scale of the miss turned clear this week, after SpaceX agreed to a $60 billion all-stock deal to accumulate Cursor, constructing on a name choice the rocket firm first secured in April 2026.
At that valuation, the discarded 5% stake can be value about $3 billion. On paper, a place the property let go for pocket change would now rank among the many most precious property it ever touched.
“SBF’s sleepless jail nights simply received worse… In 2022, Alameda (FTX) dropped $200k into Cursor pre-seed → ~5% stake at a ~$4M valuation. FTX chapter bought the complete place again at value. Today, that 5% can be value $3B – a 15,000x return,” commented John LeFevre.
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Anthropic Defines the Regret
FTX poured about $500 million into Anthropic in 2021, one of many largest personal checks written into an AI lab earlier than ChatGPT existed.
This left it near an 8% holding within the firm based by former OpenAI researchers Dario and Daniela Amodei.
With court docket approval, the property bought that stake in two 2024 tranches:
- About $884 million to a gaggle of institutional patrons in March and
- An extra $452 million that June, for roughly $1.3 billion mixed.
Anthropic has since raised a $30 billion spherical at a $380 billion post-money valuation, per the corporate’s personal disclosure.
That similar 8% stake would now be value greater than $30 billion, an exit BeInCrypto flagged as a multi-billion-dollar miss whereas Bankman-Fried sat in jail.
“He made all these bets at 29, whereas working a $32B alternate…The property simply wasn’t allowed to carry them. Say no matter you need. The man had the attention,” investor Sjuul added.
The proceeds nonetheless helped push creditor recoveries towards full reimbursement.
However, the roughly 23-fold hole between the sale value and as we speak’s worth is the clearest signal of how misery promoting clashed with frontier-tech timing.
Robinhood, Solana, Sui Round out the List
The sample repeats throughout SBF’s different pressured exits.
Emergent Fidelity Technologies, the Antigua-registered automobile Bankman-Fried managed, purchased a 7.6% stake in Robinhood for about $648 million in 2022.
After the collapse, US prosecutors seized the shares, and in 2023 the US Marshals Service bought 55.3 million of them again to Robinhood at $10.96 apiece, a $605.7 million deal.
That similar block can be value greater than $5 billion at Robinhood’s present valuation close to $87 billion.
Solana (SOL) cuts nearer to dwelling, since Alameda had been one of many token’s earliest backers.
Under a court-approved course of in 2024, the property bought roughly 30 million locked SOL at about $64 every, with Galaxy Digital and Pantera Capital among the many largest patrons.
SOL later peaked close to $293 in early 2025 earlier than sliding to about $74 today, which leaves these discounted Solana sales wanting expensive primarily towards the 2025 highs fairly than the present value.
In a separate 2023 settlement, Mysten Labs bought back FTX’s Sui (SUI) equity and token warrants for about $96 million, near the roughly $101 million the alternate had paid a yr earlier.
Taken collectively, the exits hint a portfolio of early entry to standout firms undone by a chapter that pressured fast gross sales to repay defrauded prospects.
“Sam Bankman-Fried is the best investor of all time…That means if he weren’t in jail as we speak and nonetheless owned all this fairness, he’d be value ~$100 billion… He’d be prime 20 richest folks on the earth,” stated Alex Finn, Founder/CEO of Henry Intelligent Machines PBC.
The property, run by restructuring veteran John J. Ray III, wanted money on a court docket timeline fairly than the endurance a enterprise fund can afford.
Whether it bought too cheaply or just couldn’t wait is a debate that sharpens with each new funding spherical and acquisition tied to its former holdings.
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