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In a significant development, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey in Wilmington, Delaware, approved the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX to sell its shares in the artificial intelligence startup Anthropic.
This decision was reached on Thursday after FTX engaged in a courtroom compromise with a group of customers who had initially opposed the sale.
Background and Proposal Details
FTX's investment of $500 million in Anthropic in 2021 secured the exchange a 7.84 percent stake in the company, as detailed in court documents.
With FTX navigating bankruptcy proceedings and seeking to liquidate assets to reimburse customers who lost account access during its 2022 collapse, the sale of Anthropic shares emerged as part of the court-supervised asset liquidation plan.
This will also help liquidate their assets and, in the process, create a more holistic way to move forward with their way.
According to Reuters, FTX anticipates selling the shares at a profit and retains the discretion to execute the sale at the most reasonable time. Despite initially holding a 13.56% equity stake, subsequent fundraising activities, including a $4 billion investment from Amazon.com, diluted FTX's interest in Anthropic.
Resolution and Future Considerations
While specific customers contested the sale, alleging that the Anthropic shares were procured with funds misappropriated from FTX customer deposits, they relented on Thursday, provided they reserve the right to assert later claims to proceeds generated from the shares' sale.
FTX spokesperson Dietderich clarified that the exchange intends to use the sale proceeds to reimburse customers, with ample cash reserves amounting to $6.4 billion.
According to Crypto Times, repayment calculations will reference cryptocurrency prices from November 2022, coinciding with FTX's bankruptcy filing amidst a downturn in the crypto market.
Notably, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried faces conviction for defrauding customers of billions, with sentencing scheduled for March 28 and an expected appeal against the verdict.
Photo: Mariia Shalabaieva/Unsplash
