As great as Nvidia’s stock has done, there was a better way to trade its success in powering artificial intelligence applications: buying claims on the bankrupt FTX.
Claims on the bankrupt crypto exchange previously run by Sam Bankman-Fried now have a bid-ask between 85 and 90 cents on the dollar. That’s according to data from Cherokee Acquisition, which operates a secondary market, and publishes data on claims of at least $1 million.
Those claims had a bid-ask as low as 6 to 10 cents on the dollar shortly after FTX went bankrupt. The most recent transactions were on Feb. 15, in three deals totaling nearly $2 million.
Nvidia’s
NVDA,
stock, which closed Thursday at $785.38 was $154 at FTX’s lowest value on the Cherokee market on Nov. 18, 2022.
There are two major reasons behind FTX creditors being in a position to be nearly whole — one is the rebound in cryptocurrency prices, and the other being FTX’s stake in Anthropic, which a judge on Wednesday gave it permission to sell. FTX in 2021 acquired what is now a 7.8% stake in Anthropic, the company behind the ChatGPT rival Claude, for $500 million.
FTX said in a court filing that the increased interest in AI and large language models has led to a “significant appreciation” in the value of that stake. FTX has yet to indicate when it plans to sell the stake or if it has a buyer lined up.
Arguably, Nvidia’s success has also powered the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin and ether have moved largely in tandem with technology shares, though the Securities and Exchange Commission approval of spot bitcoin ETFs also has been a factor.
FTX says it expects to pay all its customers back in full, but based on valuations of cryptocurrencies when it bankrupt in Nov. 2022.
Also read: Nvidia’s stock price isn’t the only thing that sets it apart from the rest of the Magnificent Seven
