| TL;DR: - FTX invest in a bunch of companies. Most are crypto, but he also invested $500M in Anthropic, an AI startup. - Anthropic recently raised funds that would value FTX's equity at 3.5B - 4.5B. - SBF wants to introduce this new valuation, as proof that he didn't squander customer money. Some people, including customers who lost money, think there would be enough money in selling the Anthropic equity to make everyone whole. SBF may think that this would absolve him of any crime. - However, FTX is ~8B in the red. The Anthropic equity would not cover this. Also, it's not clear that FTX could get 4.5B if had to immediately sell all their Anthropic shares. Are there enough buyers at that price? Not sure. - More importantly for SBF, the ends does not justify the means in the eye of the law. He misrepresented the riskiness of FTX by lying about FTX's relationship with Alameda. In particular, he told everyone that Alameda was treated the same as all other customers and could be liquidated when its funds got too low. In practice, SBF directed employees to allow Alameda go negative, putting customers at risk of FTX becoming unsolvent, which ended up happening. |
If you created an SPV with 499 shares at $10M each I wonder how fast it would fill up.