The bankruptcy estate of FTX sold a 5% stake in AI coding startup Cursor for $200,000 in April 2023. However, following SpaceX's recent agreement to acquire the company at a $60 billion valuation, that same stake is now worth approximately $3 billion.
This significant increase in value has brought attention to the crypto aspect of the deal, as Alameda Research, a trading firm founded by Sam Bankman-Fried, initially invested $200,000 in Anysphere, the company behind Cursor, in April 2022. The investment represented a 5% stake in the company at a $4 million valuation. After FTX's collapse, the court-appointed estate sold the Cursor stake for the same $200,000, resulting in a substantial loss of potential recovery for creditors.
This development is particularly noteworthy given Bankman-Fried's ongoing argument that the FTX estate's rapid liquidation of assets during the bankruptcy destroyed billions of dollars in value, and that customers could have received greater compensation if the process had been handled differently. The timing of the SpaceX acquisition has also raised questions about the FTX bankruptcy administration's handling of assets. Meanwhile, FTX customers have been repaid in full, but they did not benefit from the potential upside of the assets, including the significant increase in value of the Cursor stake.