So I almost bought Anthropic secondary shares back when the company was valued at $300 billion. Didn’t pull the trigger. Spent months kicking myself as the valuation rocketed past a trillion. Then today happened, and suddenly I’m relieved I sat it out.
Matthew Berman just broke down a wild story about Anthropic’s lawyers publishing a notice that voids a huge chunk of the secondary share market. The creator walks through exactly how thousands of investors may have just lost their money, and why the whole private share game is rigged against regular people.
Here’s what’s happening in plain English.
📈 The setup
Anthropic went from $300B to over $1T in valuation this year alone. Dario said revenue grew 80x. Demand for shares is insane. The problem? Anthropic is private. You can’t just open Robinhood and buy in.
So a black market formed. Early employees sell shares, middlemen wrap them in SPVs (special purpose vehicles), then wrap those in more SPVs, each layer stacking fees on top of fees. Berman points out that normal SPV fees sit around 2%, but Anthropic-hungry vehicles are charging 10% or more.
💼 The legal hammer
Anthropic’s lawyers just said the quiet part loud:
- Any share transfer without board approval is void
- SPVs are explicitly prohibited from holding Anthropic stock
- Buyers of unauthorized shares get zero stockholder rights
- Forward contracts, tokenized securities, indirect access funds: likely fraud or worthless
They even named names. The notice flagged OpenDoor Partners, Unicorns Exchange, Pachamama, Lionheart Ventures, Hive, Forge, Sidecar, and UpMarket as firms tied to unauthorized activity.
🚩 Red flags Berman highlighted
The author pulled out the warning signs the company listed:
- Unsolicited DMs offering shares
- Crypto or wire transfer payment requests
- High-pressure sales tactics
- No documentation of board approval
- Claims of “structured deals” that dodge restrictions
That last one is the killer. Most SPVs Berman has seen give zero visibility into actual board sign-off.
🏠 The bigger picture
This is where the creator gets real. Anthropic just let 600 employees cash out $6.6B in shares, averaging $11M per person. Great for them. But only insiders and mega VCs can buy in. The result? San Francisco home prices going $900K over list. New money sloshing everywhere. Regular investors locked out of one of the biggest wealth creation events in history.
The creator’s take: private companies staying private way longer (Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Stripe) means retail investors can’t touch generational gains. The rules built to protect unsophisticated investors end up protecting the wealth gap instead.
One wild side story: VC Ash Arora posted on Twitter that brokering an Anthropic secondary made her more than her entire 20s net worth, then deleted it fast when people pointed out unregistered brokering is illegal.
If you’ve been eyeing any “exclusive access” Anthropic deal, watch the full video before you wire a dollar. The receipts Berman pulls together are eye-opening.