A trader made $1.5m buying Anthropic ‘shares’ on Solana. Cashing out the win won’t be easy

A trader who invested successful Solana tokens representing vulnerability to buzzy artificial quality developer Anthropic is up astir $1.5 cardinal connected their bet.

There’s conscionable 1 snag — there’s nary 1 to merchantability them to.

The occupation is that the trader owns 31% of the 8,227 Anthropic tokens issued by PreStocks, a level that sells economical vulnerability of backstage companies earlier they spell public.

DL News ran simulations for selling the trader’s stash done respective large speech aggregators connected the Solana blockchain, wherever the tokens are issued.

The champion effect is that the trader could merchantability astir 950 tokens astatine a 34% discount beneath the asset’s terms of astir $911 per token. That would let them to currency retired $572,000, astir the aforesaid magnitude they spent buying the tokens successful the archetypal place. None of the exchanges could fulfill a swap for each the trader’s 2,593 tokens.

In short, portion the trader whitethorn person made $1.5 cardinal connected paper, they presently person nary casual mode to currency retired for anyplace adjacent to that magnitude unless much buyers measurement in.

PreStocks says investors tin petition nonstop redemptions of their tokens. Yet the process costs money, requires passing know-your-customer checks, and yet depends connected the platform’s quality to liquidate the underlying positions.

The concern highlights the pitfalls of investing successful tokens that correspond vulnerability to companies that don’t yet commercialized publicly.

Issuers often assertion that their tokens are backed one-to-one by shares of backstage companies similar Anthropic, SpaceX, and OpenAI. But investors don’t person immoderate of the aforesaid rights and assurances they would person buying a company’s shares directly, oregon done a regulated platform.

Launched successful August, PreStocks advertises that retail investors tin usage the level to summation vulnerability to backstage companies with nary minimum investment, nary paperwork, and nary absorption oregon show fees.

The level provides these opportunities by mounting up Special Purpose Vehicles, oregon SPVs, ineligible entities that get existent shares oregon vulnerability to the people backstage companies done secondary markets oregon backstage deals.

After doing so, PreStocks issues tradable tokens connected Solana which are expected to correspond these shares oregon vulnerability astatine a one-to-one ratio.

The strategy gives retail investors the accidental to summation vulnerability to backstage companies, thing usually reserved for institutions and nonrecreational investors.

Yet it has besides been criticised by galore successful the crypto industry.

In summation to the issues with cashing retired ample numbers of tokens, the biggest ailment is the deficiency of transparency surrounding the SPVs who supposedly clasp the vulnerability that backs the tokens.