The recent agreement between SpaceX and Cursor has shed light on a substantial missed recovery in crypto history. In April 2023, FTX's bankruptcy estate sold its 5% stake in Cursor for $200,000, a valuation that has now skyrocketed to approximately $3 billion following SpaceX's acquisition of the company at a $60 billion valuation. This development has brought attention to the crypto angle, particularly the investment made by Alameda Research in Anysphere, the company behind Cursor, in April 2022.
The investment of $200,000, which bought roughly 5% of the company at a $4 million valuation, was sold by the FTX estate for the same amount a year later, resulting in a significant loss of potential recovery for creditors. This incident has sparked debate, especially given the current federal sentence of Sam Bankman-Fried, who has argued that the FTX estate's rapid liquidation of assets destroyed billions in value.
The trajectory of Cursor's valuation, from its AI coding product launch in early 2023 to its current valuation, is among the steepest in software startup history, making the $3 billion forgone recovery a notable example of the kind of value that could have been realized.