Roughly a year and a half ago, the U.S. government quietly took control of shares in Anthropic — without spending a single dollar.
These shares had been confiscated from associates of disgraced cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried. Once seized, they vanished into a murky legal abyss.
Now, with Anthropic soaring toward what might become one of the largest IPOs ever, those same shares could carry a value reaching into the billions.
Bankman-Fried himself had his Anthropic holdings liquidated during the bankruptcy proceedings tied to his collapsed crypto exchange. But the Anthropic equity owned by Caroline Ellison and Nishad Singh — two associates who invested alongside him — followed a different trajectory. The government confiscated their shares and later sold them to pre-existing Anthropic shareholders, according to a source familiar with the transaction.
To this day, it remains uncertain whether the proceeds from that sale will be distributed to victims of the $11 billion fraud case or retained by federal authorities.
There’s also confusion surrounding who purchased Ellison’s and Singh’s stock and the amount they paid. However, given the meteoric rise in Anthropic’s valuation, it’s plausible those investors saw significant returns.
Bankman-Fried was found guilty in 2023 on charges of fraud and money laundering, receiving a 25-year prison sentence after the downfall of his crypto empire. Prosecutors alleged he diverted billions from FTX customers through his hedge fund, Alameda Research.
The saga of the crypto con artists’ Anthropic shares reads like a novel, blending one of the most notorious financial scandals in modern history, a chaotic bankruptcy file, and a company whose valuation exploded as global demand for AI surged.
A smart move turns into a windfall
Bankman-Fried, Singh, and Ellison all participated in Anthropic’s Series B funding round in 2022. Court documents show that Bankman-Fried invested $500 million, representing 13.56% of Anthropic at the time. Singh contributed $40 million, while Ellison added $10 million, according to filings reviewed by Themoneytimes.
The AI startup’s worth has skyrocketed over the past four years. In private markets, Anthropic has been appraised at $1.5 trillion, making it the world’s most valuable private firm, per Crunchbase.
Based on the $965 billion valuation disclosed in May, Singh’s and Ellison’s combined shares could now be worth anywhere from $4.17 billion to $5.03 billion, according to Olav Sorenson, a venture capital professor at UCLA. Another analyst, Harrison Rolfes from PitchBook, estimated the combined value closer to $2.62 billion. Should Anthropic debut publicly at a $2 trillion valuation, those shares would rise to approximately $5.44 billion, Rolfes noted.
Four of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle and corporate officers admitted guilt as co-conspirators. Three of them — including Singh and Ellison — took the stand during his trial.
Ellison served as CEO of Alameda Research, which managed and traded funds belonging to FTX users. She was also romantically involved with Bankman-Fried on and off. Singh, an FTX executive and early team member, misled investors regarding the platform’s earnings.
Following FTX’s collapse, Bankman-Fried’s Anthropic shares — held under Clifton Bay, an affiliate of Alameda Research — were pulled into bankruptcy court among the remnants of his business ventures. Those shares were later sold off to settle debts owed by FTX.
In 2024, the estate sold Bankman-Fried’s Anthropic shares to several dozen buyers for $1.3 billion — over twice the original purchase price. The biggest portion went to a fund connected to the United Arab Emirates’ sovereign wealth fund, according to bankruptcy filings.
Federal authorities acquire Anthropic stock
As part of their plea deals, judges mandated that Singh and Ellison surrender their Anthropic shares, which prosecutors argued were derived from their criminal activity.
During Singh’s sentencing, his lawyer, Andrew Goldstein, argued that Singh had purchased the shares prior to joining the conspiracy and may have had a valid claim to them. Still, he chose to forfeit them as part of his agreement, calling it “the right thing to do.”
When asked for comment, Goldstein told Themoneytimes that Singh hopes the government swiftly distributes the proceeds from the sale to FTX victims. Ellison’s attorney declined to respond.
Court records previously unreported reveal that a federal judge ordered the transfer of Ellison’s and Singh’s Anthropic shares to the U.S. government, which officially took ownership of Ellison’s shares in February 2025 and Singh’s in April of the same year.
Normally, crime victims receive compensation through court-managed restitution programs. But with potentially millions of FTX victims, prosecutors proposed using a process known as remission, overseen by the Department of Justice.
At Ellison’s sentencing, DOJ prosecutors informed the court that they would either establish an independent claims system to compensate victims or collaborate with the FTX bankruptcy team to return the seized assets.
Meanwhile, FTX’s bankruptcy case was well underway. A Delaware court appointed Sullivan & Cromwell to sort through the company’s assets, determine liabilities, and facilitate payouts.
Prosecutors pointed out that creditors in the bankruptcy largely mirrored FTX’s victims — depositors, lenders, and investors defrauded by Bankman-Fried and his associates. The DOJ had previously worked with bankruptcy trustees in high-profile fraud cases like Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.
But the FTX case had a unique wrinkle. Bankman-Fried’s investments — particularly the Anthropic shares and certain cryptocurrencies — had appreciated dramatically since the collapse. In early 2024, Sullivan & Cromwell projected that all creditors might recover their losses fully, with interest.
The U.S. Marshals step in
Prosecutors indicated plans to allocate Singh’s and Ellison’s shares toward remission, but legally, the DOJ retains broad discretion over how to handle the assets, explains Duncan Levin, a white-collar defense attorney and forfeiture instructor at Harvard Law School.
“This is a highly opaque process,” he said. “By law, it comes down to the discretion of the attorney general of the United States.”
Usually, when the government seizes private company stock through criminal forfeiture, the shares go to the US Marshals Service’s Complex Assets Unit for sale. The unit evaluates the shares like any institutional buyer would, says Michael Bachner, a securities and white-collar crime attorney.
“They consider: What would an institutional investor pay for these? Are there funds benchmarking the value? Is there an existing secondary market?”
Timing played a critical role in the sale of the Anthropic shares, Bachner added. The Marshals Service aims to maximize returns, and by the time they acquired the shares, Anthropic had evolved into a transformative AI powerhouse.
Its March 2025 Series E round valued it at $61.5 billion, and by its Series G round in early 2026, that figure jumped to $380 billion.
Each funding round also diluted the value of earlier stakes. According to the FTX estate, Bankman-Fried’s 13.56% stake in 2022 shrank to 7.84% by January 2024.
Last year, the Marshals Service sold Singh’s and Ellison’s shares to existing Anthropic investors, per a source with direct knowledge of the deal.
However, specifics remain unclear: the exact date of the sale, the identities of the buyers, the selection criteria, the sale price, and the total revenue generated for the government.
Depending on when in 2025 the shares were sold, their combined value ranged between $300 million and $1.1 billion, according to Sorenson. Rolfes offered a lower estimate, between $250 million and $630 million.
The US Marshals Service declined to comment. A DOJ spokesperson stated that details about asset sales and victim compensation are confidential.
As of late June, no proceeds from the sale of Ellison’s and Singh’s shares had been transferred to the FTX estate, according to bankruptcy filings.
The estate received $638 million in 2025 from DOJ-seized assets, primarily from the sale of Bankman-Fried’s Robinhood shares, according to its annual report. It also anticipates another $400 million in future payments, including proceeds from cryptocurrency and other investments.
Among the victims speaking out is Sunil Kavuri, who told Themoneytimes that the DOJ should redirect the funds from Ellison’s and Singh’s shares toward victim compensation. He called it “diabolical” if the government kept the money.
He argued that victims haven’t truly been made whole, since bankruptcy calculations used FTX’s bankruptcy date valuations, when crypto prices were depressed. Kavuri previously urged the bankruptcy court to hold onto the Anthropic shares longer to benefit from the company’s rapid ascent.
FTX estate representatives declined to comment. A DOJ spokesperson confirmed the case remains active and reiterated that the department “prioritizes victim compensation from forfeiture and takes all necessary steps to ensure forfeited funds reach victims.”
Ultimately, the government could decide to keep the money, Bachner noted.
“They’ve spent millions prosecuting Bankman-Fried,” he said. “And they’re looking to recoup costs, so sometimes they’ll do that. It’s entirely up to the government.”
Reporting contributions for this article were made by Jack Newsham and Katie Roof.
Correction: August 31, 2026 — A previous version incorrectly stated the number of co-conspirators who testified against Sam Bankman-Fried. It was three.
Update: August 31, 2026 — The article has been revised to clarify Singh’s involvement in the FTX fraud case.