FTX’s unliquidated investments would be worth $206B today, highlighting the cost of a fire sale

The math is simple, even if the implications are not. FTX and its trading arm Alameda Research held early-stage positions in some of the fastest-appreciating assets of the past three years. They sold most of them at bargain prices to pay back creditors as quickly as possible.

The Anthropic problem

The single most painful line item is Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude. FTX held roughly an 8% stake in Anthropic, which the estate sold for approximately $1.3 billion in 2024.

Anthropic’s valuation has since ballooned to around $380 billion. At that number, FTX’s original stake would be worth over $30 billion by itself. That is more than three times what the entire estate has distributed to creditors across all recovery efforts combined.

Solana and the token fire sale

FTX’s estate held between 25 and 30 million SOL tokens, which were sold at roughly $64 per token for a total of approximately $1.9 billion.

Solana currently trades above $130. Even at today’s price, that batch of tokens would be worth well north of $3 billion, nearly double what the estate received.

As of March 31, 2026, the remaining venture investments still held by the FTX estate carry a fair value of $1.814 billion. Cash and digital assets in the estate amount to roughly $453 million.

The liquidation paradox

The FTX Recovery Trust, established to manage creditor distributions, has been methodical in its approach. Over $10 billion has been distributed by mid-2026, and by the cold metrics of bankruptcy recovery rates, FTX creditors are actually doing relatively well compared to most fraud cases. Many creditors are receiving more than 100% of their claim value, measured in the dollar terms of their November 2022 filing.

That last detail is where the frustration concentrates. Creditor recoveries are calculated based on the value of claims at the petition date, meaning crypto holdings are pegged to their November 2022 prices. For anyone who held Bitcoin or Solana on FTX, the recovery covers what their assets were worth at the market bottom, not what those same assets would be worth today.

What this means for future crypto bankruptcies

Future bankruptcy proceedings involving venture portfolios and digital assets may face pressure to explore alternatives to immediate liquidation, such as distributing equity directly to creditors or creating structured vehicles that allow beneficiaries to participate in upside.

Disclosure: This article was edited by John Chen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.