robinhood

#SBF didn't just run a crypto exchange.
He was quietly building what might've been the most prescient investment portfolio in modern finance — until he torched it all by stealing from his own customers.
Let the numbers speak.
1. #Anthropic — The AI Crown Jewel
#FTX dropped $500M into Anthropic for an 8% stake when the AI company was worth just $2.5 billion. Early. Visionary. Perfect.
Then came the collapse.
Bankruptcy liquidators sold that same stake in two batches through early 2024 — walking away with $1.3B total. Felt like a win at the time.
Anthropic just closed its Series G at $380 billion.
That 8% stake? Worth $30 billion today.
FTX left $28.7 billion on the table. That's nearly the entire peak valuation of FTX itself — gone, because the estate had to liquidate fast.
2. #Robinhood — The Sleeper Stock
In May 2022, SBF's vehicle Emergent Fidelity Technologies quietly accumulated a 7.6% stake in Robinhood for $648M — at a time when HOOD was trading near all-time lows.
It was either genius contrarian timing or a coincidence. Either way, it was right.
The stake got swept into bankruptcy proceedings. Creditors got cents on the dollar when the position was unwound. Meanwhile, Robinhood roared back.
3. CURSOR — The $200K Miracle
This one is almost too painful to read.
Alameda Research — FTX's trading arm — invested $200,000 into a tiny AI coding startup called Anysphere during its pre-seed round in April 2022. That bought roughly 5% of the company.
When bankruptcy hit, liquidators sold it. For exactly $200K. No markup. Just... gone.
The startup built Cursor, the AI code editor now used by 67% of Fortune 500 companies, crossing $1B in annualized revenue.
Yesterday, SpaceX announced an option to acquire Cursor for $60 billion.
That $200K stake? Currently worth an estimated $3 billion.
A 15,000x return. Sold at cost.
4. $SUI — The Token Heist
FTX Ventures put $101M into Mysten Labs in August 2022 — just months before implosion — securing equity plus warrants to purchase 888 million SUI tokens for $1M extra.
In March 2023, Mysten Labs bought everything back for $96.3M — two months before SUI's mainnet launched.
At SUI's peak, those 888M tokens alone were worth over $3.5 billion. The full warrant position (1.6B tokens)? $6+ billion.
Sold for $96M.
The total?
Anthropic: $30B
Robinhood: potentially $5-10B
Cursor: $3B
SUI: $3.5–6B
That's a portfolio worth north of $40–50 billion today.
Buried under bankruptcy filings, court orders, and forced liquidations.
SBF had the eye. He genuinely saw these bets before almost anyone else.
But he funded it all with other people's money — money that wasn't his to risk.
That's not investing. That's theft with good taste.
And that's what makes this the most haunting portfolio in crypto history. #SamBankman-Fried

Q1 2026 was rough for crypto exchanges. Trading volumes were compressed by geopolitical uncertainty and months of sideways price action. Coinbase and Robinhood both faced questions about whether they could sustain growth in a flat market.
Cantor Fitzgerald analysts published a note this week answering that question — and the answer has almost nothing to do with Bitcoin spot trading.
Cantor Fitzgerald analysts said the market is treating recent trading slumps as old news, shifting focus instead toward prediction markets and new product launches to drive the next leg of growth for Coinbase and Robinhood.
Here's what's actually happening. Prediction markets — platforms where users bet real money on real-world outcomes — have become the fastest-growing product in both companies' portfolios. Users aren't trading Bitcoin. They're trading probabilities: Will Iran sign a ceasefire? Will the CLARITY Act pass? Will BTC be above $80K by May 1st? Will Tesla announce Bitcoin purchases on Thursday's earnings call?
The market for this product is enormous. Polymarket, the dominant standalone prediction platform, has processed over $8 billion in volume in 2026 alone. When Coinbase and Robinhood integrate prediction markets natively into their existing user interfaces — alongside stocks, ETFs, and crypto — they're putting that product in front of a combined user base of over 50 million people who already have verified accounts and linked bank accounts.
The friction removal is the key insight. Polymarket requires a crypto wallet and stablecoin deposit — a significant barrier for mainstream users. Coinbase and Robinhood prediction markets require nothing new from existing customers.
The lawsuit arrived the same day as the Cantor note. New York sued Coinbase and Gemini over prediction market offerings, arguing that prediction market contracts touching on sports and entertainment violate state gambling laws. Fortune Both stocks dropped sharply. COIN fell 6.3%. HOOD fell 4.5%.
Here's the honest picture: the New York lawsuit creates real near-term risk. If courts side with the state, prediction markets in sports and entertainment get shut down in New York — the largest financial market in the US. That's not a minor setback.
But Cantor's thesis is about the broader category, not just sports. Political events, financial outcomes, macroeconomic indicators — none of those fall under gambling law. That's where the real growth is happening, and that product isn't going anywhere.
The bet Coinbase and Robinhood are making: that prediction markets become the dominant retail financial product of the next five years. Based on what I'm seeing in engagement data, they might be right.

#Coinbase #Robinhood #PredictionMarkets #Polymarket #CryptoGrowth

As the inauguration day of President-elect Donald Trump (January 20) approaches, a number of leading cryptocurrency companies in the U.S. have poured millions of USD into funding this event to build political influence and promote their image during a historic period for the blockchain industry.
List of companies and notable contributions
1. Ripple
#RİPPLE leads with a donation of 5 million USD in XRP. This is part of Ripple's ambitious political strategy to promote blockchain adoption and seek support from the new administration. Previously, CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Legal Director Stuart Alderoty met with Trump to discuss the future of the industry.