an American artificial intelligence-assisted programming startup, at a valuation of US$60 billion. For most of the market, the deal is yet another sign of big technology companies’ race to dominate the market for AI tools for developers. For FTX’s creditors, it’s a bitter reminder.
In April 2022, Alameda Research, a trading desk founded by Sam Bankman-Fried and operated in parallel with the FTX exchange, invested US$200,000 in Anysphere, the company that develops Cursor. The contribution bought around 5% of the business, which at that time was valued at just US$4 million. It was a seed bet, almost a line in the budget of one of the largest cryptoactive trading houses in the world.
A year later, the situation was different. FTX had filed for bankruptcy protection in November 2022 amid revelations that billions in customer deposits had been diverted to Alameda and used in high-risk investments without users’ knowledge or consent. The scandal brought down the crypto market, led to Bankman-Fried being arrested and triggered one of the most complex bankruptcy processes in the sector’s history.
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The restructuring team, led by veteran John J. Ray III, inherited a portfolio of volatile and illiquid assets with a mission to convert them into cash as quickly as possible to pay creditors. In April 2023, the stake in Anysphere was sold for US$200,000 (around R$1 million), exactly the original value of the investment.
The growth left behind
Cursor launched its AI programming product in early 2023, just a few months before the bankruptcy estate sold its stake. Over the next three years, the startup experienced one of the fastest trajectories in the recent history of the software sector. When announcing the agreement with SpaceX, the company went from a valuation of US$4 million to US$60 billion, a growth of around 15,000 times in relation to the price paid by Alameda.
The 5% that FTX had in the company would today be worth approximately US$3 billion (approximately R$15 billion). What the bankrupt estate actually received was US$200,000. The difference is about $2.99 billion that went into the pockets of those who bought the interest in the bankruptcy, and not to the creditors that the judicial administration was supposed to maximize.
Bankman-Fried, who is serving a 25-year sentence in federal prison, has used this type of argument to criticize the bankruptcy management. In February of this year, he published a projection suggesting that FTX’s net worth would have reached $78 billion if the assets had been held in the portfolio until the market recovered, rather than sold between 2023 and 2024. With Cursor figures now available, the total value, he said, would reach $114 billion.
The logic of liquidation
The restructuring team’s defense is well founded. In 2023, crypto markets were still falling, confidence in the sector was low, and holding illiquid assets concentrated in early-stage startups posed a real risk of additional losses. Bankruptcy law does not reward speculation and the standard of practice is to preserve value, not pursue it.
In the end, FTX’s creditors were reimbursed in nominal amounts, with interest adjustment, under the bankruptcy distribution plan. What they did not receive was the appreciation that these assets accumulated between the request for judicial protection and the present, and the Cursor case is the clearest example of this: US$ 200 thousand realized against US$ 3 billion in potential.
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Bankman-Fried’s parents appeared on CNN in March advocating a presidential pardon, with the argument that the exchange’s customers were ultimately reimbursed. SpaceX’s deal with Cursor tends to be incorporated into this narrative, becoming the case with the greatest impact among the examples that the family uses to question the decisions of the judicial administration.
