Former FTX boss misses out on $37 billion in entropy capital - report
Sam Bankman-Fried, the jailed founder of the collapsed crypto exchange FTX, could have been $37 billion richer had he held on to his early investment in Entropy, the Financial Times reports.
He put $500 million into the AI company in 2021 through Alameda Research, gaining nearly 14% when Anthropic was valued at just $4 billion. With reports that the company is now on track for a $1.5 billion valuation ahead of its IPO, that stake could be worth around $37 billion.
Instead, it was sold in 2024 for about $1.3 billion as part of FTX's bankruptcy proceedings, with the money used to repay customers and creditors.
Early funding from Bankman-Fried helped Anthropic recruit researchers and train its first models, paving the way for Claude. The irony is that he is now serving a 25-year sentence for fraud and money laundering after diverting billions of FTX client funds to Alameda.