News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
Anthropic Legal Fight With Pentagon Shows Shifting Politics of AI
Welcome to Tech In Depth, our daily newsletter about the business of tech from Bloomberg's journalists around the world. Today, Austin Carr reports on Anthropic's legal case against the US government for designating the AI startup as a supply chain risk. Tech Across the Globe Meta's PR campaign: ...
Sony Music and Warner sue Anthropic for intellectual property theft
Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music have moved to sue Anthropic, the home of AI model Claude, for intellectual property theft. The complaint, filed on August 28th, names Anthropic co-founder and chief executive officer Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann as individual defendants. The suit alleges that Anthropic conducted a "brazen campaign of illegally torrenting, scraping, and downloading copyrighted works. on a massive scale in order to develop, operate, and reap enormous profits from Anthropic's 'Claude' series of artificial intelligence ('AI') models". Sony and Warner have deemed Anthropic's conduct "one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history". The team is seeking damages for "tens of thousands" of copyrighted works, asking for up to $150,000 per work, as well as $25,000 for each instance when identifiable copyright data was stripped. In total, the intended damages could amount to several billion dollars should the court rule in favour of Sony and Warner's case. Anthropic has denied the claims brought against it, writing in a short statement, "We disagree with the publishers' claims, and we intend to defend ourselves robustly in court." Specific songs named in this suit include Bon Jovi's 'Livin' on a Prayer', Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough', Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' and Taylor Swift's 'Paper Rings'. However, Anthropic has also faced multiple lawsuits from Universal Music Group, Concord, and ABKBO, as well as separate suits from BMG and Round Hill Music, all in the same area. Notably, in June 2025, a court found that Anthropic had downloaded over seven million pirated books to train its AI models. As a result, the company was ordered to pay a staggering $1.5billion. In other AI news, Australia recently moved to ban all AI-generated music from its charts after Josh Fawaz's cover of the classic Madonna hit, 'Like a Prayer', became the most-played song on Australian radio, reaching number four on two ARIA charts last month.
China Rebukes Anthropic, Sets Terms for Key US-China AI Dialogue
China laid out conditions for artificial intelligence talks with the US, striking a strident tone ahead of a much-anticipated meeting while accusing American AI company Anthropic of bad behavior. A Sunday post on Yuyuantantian, a social media account affiliated with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, said the US must prove its AI companies are subject to the same safety, disclosure and audit rules before any "substantive" discussions with China can take place. "A clear distinction must be drawn between genuine security threats and mere technological competition," said the post, published by an account frequently used to signal official policy thinking. "This line must be drawn jointly by all participating parties," it added. Officials from the US and China are expected to hold talks on AI before Xi Jinping's state visit to the US on Sept. 24 for a summit with Donald Trump. No date has been announced for that AI dialogue and Chinese officials last month were still seeking clarity on the agenda, in part to decide who to send, Bloomberg previously reported. Tensions are mounting around the AI race between the world's biggest economies. Underscoring that point, Yuyuantantian singled out Anthropic's Claude for criticism, accusing that model of overstepping user data boundaries, engaging in covert monitoring and transmitting website domains without authorization. "The problem is that America's own frontier models have already developed in a distorted direction," Yuyuantantian's post said. "This means the negotiation is not simply a technical dialogue from the start, but a continuation of all the earlier problems: the US is trying to turn the 'safety boundaries' it has drawn into the default rules for the entire world." The US government should be guarding security boundaries around AI, yet it has "repeatedly retreated" from doing so, according to the post titled "Anthropic Has Contracted the American Disease." Anthropic and the US State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent outside US office hours. The Yuyuantantian post said the US approach to AI reflects a broader effort to contain China's technological rise. "The 'control' proposed by the US is, in essence, an attempt to make China accept an order partly defined by American companies," it added. Chinese officials are growing anxious that Anthropic's Mythos could be wielded against their country, Bloomberg previously reported. They see the potential for models like Mythos to be used as an offensive weapon, and question why Anthropic is denying China access to the systems for normal purposes, people familiar said. Anthropic blocked its services from Chinese-controlled companies last year, citing US national security concerns. But that does not seem to have effectively stopped Chinese companies from using its products. The firm, along with OpenAI and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, has expressed concern about its models being used in China. Anthropic has also accused Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. of "illicitly" accessing Claude using thousands of fraudulent accounts, an allegation the Chinese tech giant has not responded to.
Polymarket says surveillance systems ready for U.S. midterm trading
Polymarket has strengthened its trade surveillance and investigation systems ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, as the prediction market operator faces scrutiny over insider trading and American access to its international platform. Reuters reported on Aug. 31 that Polymarket's new global head of investigations and intelligence, Shana Bautista, said the company has systems capable of identifying unusual trading activity as election-related markets attract closer attention. "I'm confident that I'm able to get the resources and the support I need," Bautista told Reuters in her first interview since joining Polymarket in June. "I can tell you that we have the systems in place to be able to identify anomalous activity when the midterms do come." Polymarket prepares surveillance systems for U.S. midterms Bautista, a former FBI investigator and Coinbase analyst, is overseeing Polymarket's investigative work as U.S. lawmakers examine whether prediction markets could provide a venue for trading based on sensitive government or political information. Congress has already moved toward restricting lawmakers from participating in such markets. Crypto.news previously reported that Rep. Bryan Steil was seeking to include a prediction market trading ban in a proposal that would restrict stock trading by members of Congress and their families. Steil said lawmakers should not be trading contracts tied to elections or public policy. His proposal followed a unanimous Senate vote in April barring senators and their staff from trading on prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi. Questions over insider access have extended beyond lawmakers. A study published earlier this year examined how restrictions could affect the information produced by prediction market prices, arguing that enforcement should distinguish between traders who possess private information and participants who can influence the outcome of an event. The research found that a blanket ban could reduce the information available in market prices, while recommending stronger penalties for participants capable of changing an outcome themselves. The findings came as Polymarket and Kalshi faced increased insider trading scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers. Polymarket says its surveillance program uses several sources of information to detect potentially malicious activity. Bautista said the company combines machine learning, blockchain analytics, trade surveillance, open-source research and third-party services. A new webpage will provide more public information about those controls and explain how the company works with law enforcement, according to a Polymarket spokesperson cited by Reuters. "The market integrity program itself is not new, but what we're putting on the record now is considerably more detail about how it operates," Bautista said. Blockchain activity gives Polymarket investigators a trading trail Trades on Polymarket's international platform settle on a blockchain, leaving transaction records publicly visible even when the people controlling individual wallets remain anonymous. Critics have argued that pseudonymous wallet-based trading can create opportunities for misconduct. Bautista told Reuters that blockchain records can provide investigators with useful information about trading behavior and movements of funds between addresses. Polymarket says it has referred more than 100 cases to law enforcement. One involved a wallet linked to a U.S. soldier who prosecutors say used classified information to trade contracts concerning the capture of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro. A federal judge in August paused the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's civil case tied to the soldier while a related criminal proceeding continues. Prosecutors allege that about $409,881 was earned through 13 Venezuela-related Polymarket trades, according to the CFTC case proceedings. The defendant has pleaded not guilty and challenged whether the prediction contracts involved in the case legally qualify as swaps. Bautista said other referrals involved possible insider wagers concerning U.S. military actions in Iran. Reuters reported earlier in August that several trades linked to military developments had raised questions over whether some participants possessed information that was not publicly available. Political concern has extended to federal employees with access to sensitive information. More than 40 Democratic lawmakers previously asked the CFTC and the U.S. Office of Government Ethics for guidance restricting federal employees from using nonpublic information to trade prediction contracts. Their letter raised concerns involving political events, military developments and other contracts where government employees could have access to information before the public. Polymarket says controls block most U.S. users Keeping American users away from Polymarket's international platform remains another enforcement issue for the company. The CFTC reached a settlement with Polymarket in 2022 after finding that it had offered event-based binary options contracts without registering with the regulator. Polymarket agreed to pay a $1.4 million civil penalty and wind down markets that did not comply with U.S. law. The settlement required the company to prevent U.S. customers from using its international operation. Bautista told Reuters that she believes Polymarket's current systems are sufficient to stop the vast majority of American users from accessing the international platform. "It is difficult at scale to be able to consistently and always evade all of the guardrails we have," Bautista said. "I do not see it being a really prevalent issue." Blockchain research has raised questions over how effectively those restrictions work. On-chain research firm Allium estimated that U.S.-linked wallets traded about $571 million in political contracts on Polymarket over a one-year period despite the restrictions. The United States represented the largest national group identified in its analysis. Allium cautioned that it could assign country labels to only a small share of political-market wallets and described its estimates as directional because blockchain activity cannot establish the identity or physical location of every trader. The findings renewed attention on U.S. wallet activity on Polymarket's international venue. Federal scrutiny of the company has changed under President Donald Trump's administration. Regulators dropped an investigation into whether Polymarket had breached its 2022 settlement, and CEO Shayne Coplan said at the time that the company had been cleared of wrongdoing. Polymarket has taken a separate route to serve American customers through a regulated exchange. The company returned to the U.S. market after acquiring a CFTC-registered exchange last year, creating an operation separate from the international blockchain platform that remains closed to U.S. users. State lawsuits target prediction market sports contracts While federal regulators oversee event contracts under commodities law, prediction market companies are fighting a separate series of disputes with state authorities over sports-related contracts. Several states have argued that sports event contracts offered by prediction market platforms amount to gambling products that require state licenses. Prediction market companies have disputed that position, maintaining that qualifying event contracts fall under federal commodities regulation and CFTC jurisdiction. The conflict has produced lawsuits seeking to stop prediction market operators from offering sports contracts without state gambling licenses. Polymarket's regulated U.S. operation and its international platform remain separate. The international service uses blockchain-based settlement and wallet trading, while the U.S. exchange operates within the CFTC regulatory framework. Bautista told Reuters that Polymarket intends to provide more public detail about its surveillance program as the midterm elections approach, including how the company uses blockchain analytics, machine learning and trade monitoring to identify suspicious activity and refer cases to law enforcement.
How to Automate Polymarket Trades: APIs, Terminals and Copy Trading Compared
There are three ways to stop trading prediction markets by hand, and they suit completely different people. Picking the wrong one wastes months. Here is what each route requires from you, what it gives back, and who should ignore it. Route one: the API You write code that reads market data and places orders. Full control, no interface between your logic and the market. The requirement is that you have logic worth automating. An API turns a strategy into software, and if the strategy is undefined, all you have built is a faster way to express uncertainty. There is also maintenance. Markets change, endpoints change, and a script that worked in March needs attention in August. That is ongoing work, not a one-time build. This route makes sense if you are a developer with a tested edge in a specific category. For everyone else it is a project that competes for the time you were trying to save. Route two: the terminal A terminal does not trade for you. It removes steps between your decision and the fill, which is where most of the time actually goes. Banana Predict organises markets across twelve categories with tabs for Trending, Breaking, New, Recurring and Bonding, so discovery starts from what is moving. The order entry shows a real book with price, shares and total USD depth, plus a payout preview that calculates the return on a stake before you commit. Positions sit in Portfolio, working orders in My orders, and fills in the Activity feed. A Wallet Tracker follows addresses, and a Social and X Tracker monitors accounts in real time with search by contract, symbol or user. None of that is automation in the strict sense. It is compression, and for most traders it recovers more time than a script would. Route three: copy trading Copytrade mirrors a trader selected from the leaderboard, which ranks by profit and loss alongside volume. This automates the hardest part, which is having a view. You are outsourcing judgement rather than execution. The catch is that you inherit a person rather than a system. When their edge fades, nothing alerts you, and the leaderboard will show the old number for a long time afterwards. Which one fits you If you can define your rules precisely enough to write them down as conditions, the API is worth the build. If your process is sound but slow, a terminal fixes the actual problem. If you have no view and want exposure, copy trading is honest about what it is, provided you attach your own sizing. Most people who ask about automation are in the second group and reach for the first. Cost is not the same across routes An API costs you build time and maintenance. A terminal costs you nothing beyond learning it. Copy trading costs you the spread between the original fill and yours. That last one is invisible and it is real. Your mirrored order arrives after the trader moved the market, which means you systematically pay slightly worse prices than the record you were copying. Over a few hundred positions that gap becomes the difference between matching a leaderboard trader and underperforming them while taking the same risk. The mistake all three share Automation applied to a thin market amplifies the depth problem. On a contract at 62 cents, walking two or three cents against yourself removes a large share of the expected return. Manual traders notice this because they are looking at the book. Automated entries do not, because not looking was the point. Whichever route you take, cap size against visible depth rather than against how confident you feel. The shortest useful rule Automate what you can describe. Keep manual what you can only judge. What none of them automate Resolution criteria stay yours. Markets resolve on written rules through a UMA-style process, and similar-looking contracts can resolve on different sources or dates. Read the Rules section on anything you hold in size, every time, regardless of how the position was opened. A reasonable sequence Start with a terminal and run manually for a month while tracking where the time goes. Add copy trading in one category with a fixed unit if you want exposure beyond your own reading. Consider the API only once you have a written rule set that survived a month of live conditions. Building software before you have a rule that works is the most common and most expensive order to do this in. The traders who end up with genuinely automated systems almost always arrive there slowly, after a manual process proved itself first. The ones who start with the code usually end up maintaining software instead of trading. Mirroring comes with controls that decide whether it works at all, and the full guide to copy trading on Banana Predict covers each of them. Open the Banana Pro terminal and see how much of your process is compression rather than code. ⚠ For information purposes only. Crypto carries risk. Not financial advice! Related Items:Automate Polymarket Trades, Polymarket Trades
Sony Accuses Anthropic Of 'brazen Campaign' To Train Claude In His Music - And Wants Up To $150,000 Per Song
Sony Music and Warner Chappell filed a lawsuit against Anthropic on Friday. Illustration by Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Sony Music and Warner Chappell want Anthropic to pay. The publishers filed a lawsuit against Anthropic on Friday in a district court in Northern California. Anthropic co-founders Dario Amodei And Benjamin Mann were also mentioned in the file. "Defendants Anthropic and its founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann engaged in a brazen campaign of illegally torrenting, scraping, and downloading copyrighted works on a massive scale to develop, exploit, and reap vast profits from Anthropic's 'Claude' series of artificial intelligence ("AI") models," the companies said in the complaint. Anthropic denied the allegations in a statement. "We disagree with the publishers' claims and intend to vigorously defend ourselves in court," the company said. Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music said Anthropic has collected "thousands and thousands" of copyrighted songs, including the '80s anthem "Eye of the Tiger," Marvin Gaye's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You," and Taylor Swift's "Paper Rings." In the lawsuit, the publishers said Anthropic did that their copyrighted works pirated through a range of methods including two digital archives, Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror. In June 2025, a judge ruled that Anthropic had downloaded more than 7 million pirated books to train Claude. "Among the many millions of books that Defendants torrented from these illegal pirate websites were books containing the lyrics and sheet music of hundreds or more copyrighted musical compositions from music publishers, identified in Exhibit A. These works include 'Livin' On a Prayer,' 'September,' 'Great Balls of Fire,' 'Ramblin' Man' and 'Hallelujah,'" the lawsuit said. As a result Claude models generate identical or nearly identical copies of the copyrighted work in their responses to users, the companies claimed. In the lawsuit, the companies said that training Claude on copyrighted content will allow him to produce AI-generated lyrics that will eventually compete with human-made songs. Sony Music and Warner Chappell requested a jury trial. They are seeking statutory damages from Anthropic, including up to $150,000 for each composition used to train Claude. "Even the most revolutionary technologies must develop within the boundaries of the law, and Anthropic's Claude models are no different," the companies said in the complaint. The AI industry has been the target of a slew of copyright lawsuits since major language models like Claude and ChatGPT began transforming society. Technology companies need large amounts of data to train their AI models, and are doing everything they can to acquire it. Recently, historians and archivists have accused AI companies of acquiring large numbers of ancient books and importing them into their LLMs, destroying them in the process. Last September, Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion for authors to settle a class action lawsuit regarding illegal works. OpenAI has also had to deal with this various copyright cases in recent years, including one from The New York Times and another from Encyclopedia Britannica.
Polymarket stands ready to fight misconduct as US midterms loom, intel chief says
WASHINGTON, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Prediction market company Polymarket is fully prepared to police trading on its platform as the approaching U.S. midterm elections test the industry's controls, the company's new global head of investigations and intelligence told Reuters. Polymarket is also working to keep U.S. users off its international platform, as required by an enforcement settlement it reached with U.S. regulators in 2022, said Shana Bautista, a former Coinbase analyst and FBI investigator. "I'm confident that I'm able to get the resources and the support I need," Bautista told Reuters in her first interview since joining Polymarket in June. "I can tell you that we have the systems in place to be able to identify anomalous activity when the midterms do come." Polymarket is under pressure from U.S. lawmakers worried fast-growing prediction markets are creating new avenues for insider trading and may threaten national security and election integrity - by undermining confidence in candidates and election officials or casting doubt on race results, among other possibilities. Many states are meanwhile suing to kick the industry out of sports betting. Polymarket's international platform settles trades on a blockchain, meaning wagers are public, although traders remain anonymous. Critics say that's a recipe for misconduct. Bautista said Polymarket's blockchain nevertheless provides highly valuable information about trader activity. The company, which was founded in 2020, says it has been beefing up controls and plans to provide more transparency around how it polices wagers. It is launching a new web page explaining how it protects market integrity and cooperates with law enforcement, a spokesperson said. Bautista said the web page will outline how Polymarket uses machine learning, blockchain analytics, trade surveillance, open source research and third-parties to spot and stop malicious activity. "The market integrity program itself is not new, but what we're putting on the record now is considerably more detail about how it operates," she said. The company says it has referred more than a hundred cases to law enforcement. Bautista said those include a wallet used by a U.S. soldier who prosecutors say used classified information to bet on the capture of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, and many possible insider bets on U.S. military actions in Iran that Reuters reported earlier this month. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2022 fined Polymarket for failing to register with the agency and required it to bar U.S. users, but analysts say there is evidence that U.S. users continue to trade on the platform. Bautista said she believes the company's systems are sufficient to block the vast majority of U.S. users. "It is difficult at scale to be able to consistently and always evade all of the guardrails we have," said Bautista. "I do not see it being a really prevalent issue." Under President Trump's administration, which has embraced prediction markets, federal regulators dropped a probe into whether Polymarket had breached the settlement. CEO Shayne Coplan said at the time that the company had been cleared of wrongdoing. Polymarket re-entered the U.S. by acquiring a U.S.-registered exchange last year. (Reporting by Douglas Gillison in Washington; editing by Michelle Price and Nick Zieminski) Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect This story was originally published August 31, 2026 at 4:12 AM.
Polymarket stands ready to fight misconduct as US midterms loom, intel chief says By Reuters
WASHINGTON, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Prediction market company Polymarket is fully prepared to police trading on its platform as the approaching U.S. midterm elections test the industry's controls, the company's new global head of investigations and intelligence told Reuters. Polymarket is also working to keep U.S. users off its international platform, as required by an enforcement settlement it reached with U.S. regulators in 2022, said Shana Bautista, a former Coinbase analyst and FBI investigator. "I'm confident that I'm able to get the resources and the support I need," Bautista told Reuters in her first interview since joining Polymarket in June. "I can tell you that we have the systems in place to be able to identify anomalous activity when the midterms do come." Polymarket is under pressure from U.S. lawmakers worried fast-growing prediction markets are creating new avenues for insider trading and may threaten national security and election integrity -- by undermining confidence in candidates and election officials or casting doubt on race results, among other possibilities. Many states are meanwhile suing to kick the industry out of sports betting. Polymarket's international platform settles trades on a blockchain, meaning wagers are public, although traders remain anonymous. Critics say that's a recipe for misconduct. Bautista said Polymarket's blockchain nevertheless provides highly valuable information about trader activity. The company, which was founded in 2020, says it has been beefing up controls and plans to provide more transparency around how it polices wagers. It is launching a new web page explaining how it protects market integrity and cooperates with law enforcement, a spokesperson said. Bautista said the web page will outline how Polymarket uses machine learning, blockchain analytics, trade surveillance, open source research and third-parties to spot and stop malicious activity. "The market integrity program itself is not new, but what we're putting on the record now is considerably more detail about how it operates," she said. The company says it has referred more than a hundred cases to law enforcement. Bautista said those include a wallet used by a U.S. soldier who prosecutors say used classified information to bet on the capture of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, and many possible insider bets on U.S. military actions in Iran that Reuters reported earlier this month. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2022 fined Polymarket for failing to register with the agency and required it to bar U.S. users, but analysts say there is evidence that U.S. users continue to trade on the platform. Bautista said she believes the company's systems are sufficient to block the vast majority of U.S. users. "It is difficult at scale to be able to consistently and always evade all of the guardrails we have," said Bautista. "I do not see it being a really prevalent issue." Under President Trump's administration, which has embraced prediction markets, federal regulators dropped a probe into whether Polymarket had breached the settlement. CEO Shayne Coplan said at the time that the company had been cleared of wrongdoing. Polymarket re-entered the U.S. by acquiring a U.S.-registered exchange last year.
Ridley Scott says Alien 4 'killed' the franchise before he revived it with Prometheus
Ridley Scott believes the Alien film series was dead and buried before he made 2012's Prometheus. The British filmmaker directed the original Alien, released in 1979, which followed the crew of a commercial spaceship as they encountered a deadly extraterrestrial creature. The sci-fi horror became a blockbuster franchise, spawning three sequels and the Alien vs. Predator crossover films. In a new interview, Scott claimed he brought the franchise back to life after 1997's Alien Resurrection performed badly at the box office. "I did the best one by far," the director told French outlet Brut, definitively. "Full stop. End of the f***ing story. "Then they let it die," he continued. "After [Alien] 4, they killed it. So I sat there thinking, I'm going to bring it back. So I sat down with a very good writer; two guys [and] eventually ended up with Damon Lindelof, and we caught fire and wrote Prometheus. "So I suddenly bring [it] back where it all began. Then I thought that shook the cage a bit and I did the next one, Alien Covenant. So now it's up and running." Acting as a prequel to Alien, Prometheus comprised a blockbuster cast including Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green, and Charlize Theron. It followed a team of scientists who travel to a distant planet searching for the origins of humanity, alongside David (Fassbender), an android whose mysterious loyalties become increasingly unsettling. A sequel, Alien: Covenant (2017), saw Fassbender reprise the role. On the review aggregation site, Prometheus sits behind Aliens, Alien and the 2024 interquel Alien: Romulus, with an overall critics' score of 73 percent. Alien 2 and 3 were directed by James Cameron and David Fincher, respectively, while Jean-Pierre Jeunet directed the fourth film, Alien Resurrection, starring Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder. It grossed just $47.8 million in the United States and Canada, making it the lowest-grossing installment of the Alien series in that market and was broadly panned by critics. Writer Joss Whedon disassociated himself from the project, saying in a 2005 interview: "It wasn't so much that they'd changed the script -- it's that they just executed it in such a ghastly fashion as to render it almost unwatchable." In a 2022 interview with The Independent marking the film's 25th anniversary, Jeunet said he had recently rewatched Resurrection and was pleasantly surprised. "I was a little bit concerned to watch my film - maybe I won't like it?" he said. "No, it was great! I have a lot of shots that I love. For the people who don't like it, I can say, 'f*** you!'" Scott is set to return to the Alien universe with Fassbender for the conclusion to his prequel trilogy. "Actually, I suddenly went back and got involved," he told French outlet AlloCiné last week. "The one that just came out [2024's Alien: Romulus] was OK. I think it needs some help. So, I've gone back in." Scott continued: "I've already got a footprint for the next Alien. We did Prometheus, and then Alien: Covenant. So, I'm picking up where we left off in Covenant with Michael Fassbender, who now thinks he's Ozymandias." The news comes after FX renewed Noah Hawley's TV spinoff Alien: Earth for a second season.
Polymarket stands ready to fight misconduct as US midterms loom, intel chief says
WASHINGTON, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Prediction market company Polymarket is fully prepared to police trading on its platform as the approaching U.S. midterm elections test the industry's controls, the company's new global head of investigations and intelligence told Reuters. Polymarket is also working to keep U.S. users off its international platform, as required by an enforcement settlement it reached with U.S. regulators in 2022, said Shana Bautista, a former Coinbase analyst and FBI investigator. "I'm confident that I'm able to get the resources and the support I need," Bautista told Reuters in her first interview since joining Polymarket in June. "I can tell you that we have the systems in place to be able to identify anomalous activity when the midterms do come." Polymarket is under pressure from U.S. lawmakers worried fast-growing prediction markets are creating new avenues for insider trading and may threaten national security and election integrity - by undermining confidence in candidates and election officials or casting doubt on race results, among other possibilities. Many states are meanwhile suing to kick the industry out of sports betting. Polymarket's international platform settles trades on a blockchain, meaning wagers are public, although traders remain anonymous. Critics say that's a recipe for misconduct. Bautista said Polymarket's blockchain nevertheless provides highly valuable information about trader activity. The company, which was founded in 2020, says it has been beefing up controls and plans to provide more transparency around how it polices wagers. It is launching a new web page explaining how it protects market integrity and cooperates with law enforcement, a spokesperson said. Bautista said the web page will outline how Polymarket uses machine learning, blockchain analytics, trade surveillance, open source research and third-parties to spot and stop malicious activity. "The market integrity program itself is not new, but what we're putting on the record now is considerably more detail about how it operates," she said. The company says it has referred more than a hundred cases to law enforcement. Bautista said those include a wallet used by a U.S. soldier who prosecutors say used classified information to bet on the capture of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, and many possible insider bets on U.S. military actions in Iran that Reuters reported earlier this month. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2022 fined Polymarket for failing to register with the agency and required it to bar U.S. users, but analysts say there is evidence that U.S. users continue to trade on the platform. Bautista said she believes the company's systems are sufficient to block the vast majority of U.S. users. "It is difficult at scale to be able to consistently and always evade all of the guardrails we have," said Bautista. "I do not see it being a really prevalent issue." Under President Trump's administration, which has embraced prediction markets, federal regulators dropped a probe into whether Polymarket had breached the settlement. CEO Shayne Coplan said at the time that the company had been cleared of wrongdoing. Polymarket re-entered the U.S. by acquiring a U.S.-registered exchange last year. (Reporting by Douglas Gillison in Washington; editing by Michelle Price and Nick Zieminski) Copyright Reuters or USA Today via Reuters Connect This story was originally published August 31, 2026 at 6:12 AM.
Polymarket stands ready to fight misconduct as US midterms loom, intel chief says
WASHINGTON, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Prediction market company Polymarket is fully prepared to police trading on its platform as the approaching U.S. midterm elections test the industry's controls, the company's new global head of investigations and intelligence told Reuters. Polymarket is also working to keep U.S. users off its international platform, as required by an enforcement settlement it reached with U.S. regulators in 2022, said Shana Bautista, a former Coinbase analyst and FBI investigator. "I'm confident that I'm able to get the resources and the support I need," Bautista told Reuters in her first interview since joining Polymarket in June. "I can tell you that we have the systems in place to be able to identify anomalous activity when the midterms do come." Polymarket is under pressure from U.S. lawmakers worried fast-growing prediction markets are creating new avenues for insider trading and may threaten national security and election integrity - by undermining confidence in candidates and election officials or casting doubt on race results, among other possibilities. Many states are meanwhile suing to kick the industry out of sports betting. Polymarket's international platform settles trades on a blockchain, meaning wagers are public, although traders remain anonymous. Critics say that's a recipe for misconduct. Bautista said Polymarket's blockchain nevertheless provides highly valuable information about trader activity. The company, which was founded in 2020, says it has been beefing up controls and plans to provide more transparency around how it polices wagers. It is launching a new web page explaining how it protects market integrity and cooperates with law enforcement, a spokesperson said. Bautista said the web page will outline how Polymarket uses machine learning, blockchain analytics, trade surveillance, open source research and third-parties to spot and stop malicious activity. "The market integrity program itself is not new, but what we're putting on the record now is considerably more detail about how it operates," she said. The company says it has referred more than a hundred cases to law enforcement. Bautista said those include a wallet used by a U.S. soldier who prosecutors say used classified information to bet on the capture of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, and many possible insider bets on U.S. military actions in Iran that Reuters reported earlier this month. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2022 fined Polymarket for failing to register with the agency and required it to bar U.S. users, but analysts say there is evidence that U.S. users continue to trade on the platform. Bautista said she believes the company's systems are sufficient to block the vast majority of U.S. users. "It is difficult at scale to be able to consistently and always evade all of the guardrails we have," said Bautista. "I do not see it being a really prevalent issue." Under President Trump's administration, which has embraced prediction markets, federal regulators dropped a probe into whether Polymarket had breached the settlement. CEO Shayne Coplan said at the time that the company had been cleared of wrongdoing. Polymarket re-entered the U.S. by acquiring a U.S.-registered exchange last year. (Reporting by Douglas Gillison in Washington; editing by Michelle Price and Nick Zieminski) Copyright Reuters or USA Today via Reuters Connect This story was originally published August 31, 2026 at 3:12 AM.
Polymarket stands ready to fight misconduct as US midterms loom, intel chief says
WASHINGTON, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Prediction market company Polymarket is fully prepared to police trading on its platform as the approaching U.S. midterm elections test the industry's controls, the company's new global head of investigations and intelligence told Reuters. Polymarket is also working to keep U.S. users off its international platform, as required by an enforcement settlement it reached with U.S. regulators in 2022, said Shana Bautista, a former Coinbase analyst and FBI investigator. "I'm confident that I'm able to get the resources and the support I need," Bautista told Reuters in her first interview since joining Polymarket in June. "I can tell you that we have the systems in place to be able to identify anomalous activity when the midterms do come." Polymarket is under pressure from U.S. lawmakers worried fast-growing prediction markets are creating new avenues for insider trading and may threaten national security and election integrity - by undermining confidence in candidates and election officials or casting doubt on race results, among other possibilities. Many states are meanwhile suing to kick the industry out of sports betting. Polymarket's international platform settles trades on a blockchain, meaning wagers are public, although traders remain anonymous. Critics say that's a recipe for misconduct. Bautista said Polymarket's blockchain nevertheless provides highly valuable information about trader activity. The company, which was founded in 2020, says it has been beefing up controls and plans to provide more transparency around how it polices wagers. It is launching a new web page explaining how it protects market integrity and cooperates with law enforcement, a spokesperson said. Bautista said the web page will outline how Polymarket uses machine learning, blockchain analytics, trade surveillance, open source research and third-parties to spot and stop malicious activity. "The market integrity program itself is not new, but what we're putting on the record now is considerably more detail about how it operates," she said. The company says it has referred more than a hundred cases to law enforcement. Bautista said those include a wallet used by a U.S. soldier who prosecutors say used classified information to bet on the capture of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, and many possible insider bets on U.S. military actions in Iran that Reuters reported earlier this month. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2022 fined Polymarket for failing to register with the agency and required it to bar U.S. users, but analysts say there is evidence that U.S. users continue to trade on the platform. Bautista said she believes the company's systems are sufficient to block the vast majority of U.S. users. "It is difficult at scale to be able to consistently and always evade all of the guardrails we have," said Bautista. "I do not see it being a really prevalent issue." Under President Trump's administration, which has embraced prediction markets, federal regulators dropped a probe into whether Polymarket had breached the settlement. CEO Shayne Coplan said at the time that the company had been cleared of wrongdoing. Polymarket re-entered the U.S. by acquiring a U.S.-registered exchange last year. (Reporting by Douglas Gillison in Washington; editing by Michelle Price and Nick Zieminski) Copyright Reuters or USA Today via Reuters Connect This story was originally published August 31, 2026 at 5:12 AM.
Polymarket stands ready to fight misconduct as US midterms loom, intel chief says
WASHINGTON, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Prediction market company Polymarket is fully prepared to police trading on its platform as the approaching U.S. midterm elections test the industry's controls, the company's new global head of investigations and intelligence told Reuters. Polymarket is also working to keep U.S. users off its international platform, as required by an enforcement settlement it reached with U.S. regulators in 2022, said Shana Bautista, a former Coinbase analyst and FBI investigator. "I'm confident that I'm able to get the resources and the support I need," Bautista told Reuters in her first interview since joining Polymarket in June. "I can tell you that we have the systems in place to be able to identify anomalous activity when the midterms do come." Polymarket is under pressure from U.S. lawmakers worried fast-growing prediction markets are creating new avenues for insider trading and may threaten national security and election integrity -- by undermining confidence in candidates and election officials or casting doubt on race results, among other possibilities. Many states are meanwhile suing to kick the industry out of sports betting. Polymarket's international platform settles trades on a blockchain, meaning wagers are public, although traders remain anonymous. Critics say that's a recipe for misconduct. Bautista said Polymarket's blockchain nevertheless provides highly valuable information about trader activity. The company, which was founded in 2020, says it has been beefing up controls and plans to provide more transparency around how it polices wagers. It is launching a new web page explaining how it protects market integrity and cooperates with law enforcement, a spokesperson said. Bautista said the web page will outline how Polymarket uses machine learning, blockchain analytics, trade surveillance, open source research and third-parties to spot and stop malicious activity. "The market integrity program itself is not new, but what we're putting on the record now is considerably more detail about how it operates," she said. The company says it has referred more than a hundred cases to law enforcement. Bautista said those include a wallet used by a U.S. soldier who prosecutors say used classified information to bet on the capture of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, and many possible insider bets on U.S. military actions in Iran that Reuters reported earlier this month. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2022 fined Polymarket for failing to register with the agency and required it to bar U.S. users, but analysts say there is evidence that U.S. users continue to trade on the platform. Bautista said she believes the company's systems are sufficient to block the vast majority of U.S. users.
Polymarket Stands Ready to Fight Misconduct as US Midterms Loom, Intel Chief Says
WASHINGTON, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Prediction market company Polymarket is fully prepared to police trading on its platform as the approaching U.S. midterm elections test the industry's controls, the company's new global head of investigations and intelligence told Reuters. Polymarket is also working to keep U.S. users off its international platform, as required by an enforcement settlement it reached with U.S. regulators in 2022, said Shana Bautista, a former Coinbase analyst and FBI investigator. "I'm confident that I'm able to get the resources and the support I need," Bautista told Reuters in her first interview since joining Polymarket in June. "I can tell you that we have the systems in place to be able to identify anomalous activity when the midterms do come." Polymarket is under pressure from U.S. lawmakers worried fast-growing prediction markets are creating new avenues for insider trading and may threaten national security and election integrity -- by undermining confidence in candidates and election officials or casting doubt on race results, among other possibilities. Many states are meanwhile suing to kick the industry out of sports betting. Polymarket's international platform settles trades on a blockchain, meaning wagers are public, although traders remain anonymous. Critics say that's a recipe for misconduct. Bautista said Polymarket's blockchain nevertheless provides highly valuable information about trader activity. The company, which was founded in 2020, says it has been beefing up controls and plans to provide more transparency around how it polices wagers. It is launching a new web page explaining how it protects market integrity and cooperates with law enforcement, a spokesperson said. Bautista said the web page will outline how Polymarket uses machine learning, blockchain analytics, trade surveillance, open source research and third-parties to spot and stop malicious activity. "The market integrity program itself is not new, but what we're putting on the record now is considerably more detail about how it operates," she said. The company says it has referred more than a hundred cases to law enforcement. Bautista said those include a wallet used by a U.S. soldier who prosecutors say used classified information to bet on the capture of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, and many possible insider bets on U.S. military actions in Iran that Reuters reported earlier this month. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2022 fined Polymarket for failing to register with the agency and required it to bar U.S. users, but analysts say there is evidence that U.S. users continue to trade on the platform. Bautista said she believes the company's systems are sufficient to block the vast majority of U.S. users. "It is difficult at scale to be able to consistently and always evade all of the guardrails we have," said Bautista. "I do not see it being a really prevalent issue." Under President Trump's administration, which has embraced prediction markets, federal regulators dropped a probe into whether Polymarket had breached the settlement. CEO Shayne Coplan said at the time that the company had been cleared of wrongdoing. Polymarket re-entered the U.S. by acquiring a U.S.-registered exchange last year. (Reporting by Douglas Gillison in Washington; editing by Michelle Price and Nick Zieminski)
Anthropic Warns: Infostealer Malware Draining Claude AI Sessions Data-Stealing Threat Emerges - Diaspora Digital Media (DDM News) - Nigeria Breaking News, Africa and World News and Updates
Tech Firm Anthropic Warns Malware Drains AI Sessions Hackers are using infostealer malware to hijack active Claude browser sessions and drain user limits. Consequently, the tech firm Anthropic is forcing logouts, removing payment methods, and issuing full refunds to protect user accounts. Anthropic warns that infostealer malware is hijacking active Claude AI sessions, bypassing passwords to drain tech account limits and data. Specifically, the tech firm Anthropic is warning users about a serious cyber threat. Hackers are actively stealing Claude AI sessions from infected computers. Indeed, attackers use infostealer malware to drain daily account limits. As a result, they bypass passwords and steal sensitive data. Malware Bypasses Standard Security Essentially, infostealer malware targets active browser sessions on infected computers. For example, these programs copy login cookies directly from browsers. Therefore, hackers skip normal password checks entirely during the attack. Specifically, they easily bypass complex two-factor authentication security measures. Indeed, attackers gain full access to the compromised Claude account. Consequently, they drain API limits and abuse paid account features. As a result, victims lose money and private conversation data. Furthermore, Anthropic confirms the malware comes from outside web sources. Specifically, users often download these viruses through illegal pirated games. Additionally, fake software installers remain a major daily infection route. In fact, the AI platform itself remains completely safe today. However, a stolen session cookie grants immediate unauthorized account access. Therefore, users unknowingly expose their accounts while browsing the web. Of course, hackers exploit this trust to ruin digital lives. Anthropic Takes Quick Action Meanwhile, the company is actively fighting this growing security issue. Specifically, Anthropic forces sudden logouts for all affected user accounts. Through this, they kill the stolen session and block hackers. Additionally, the platform removes saved payment methods to stop charges. As a result, Gridinsoft Blogs reports that users receive full refunds. Indeed, this rapid response saves many people from financial ruin. Consequently, the tech community praises Anthropic for these fast actions. Subsequently, affected users receive detailed warning emails from the company. For example, a Reddit user shared their official warning notice. Indeed, the system flags suspicious activity before draining API credits. Specifically, the software detects sudden usage spikes from strange locations. However, simply logging out does not remove the actual virus. Therefore, victims must clean their hard drives to stay safe. Of course, ignoring the malware will just cause another breach. Dangerous Infostealer Families Identified Specifically, researchers identified several common malware families behind these attacks. For example, Windows users face threats from Vidar and RedLine. Additionally, LummaC2 and StealC actively hunt for saved browser data. In contrast, Mac users face attacks from the dangerous Atomic Stealer. Consequently, India Today Tech urges users to check system processes. Indeed, these silent programs hide deep inside normal computer files. As a result, many antivirus programs struggle to find them. Additionally, these dangerous programs steal much more than AI sessions. Specifically, they collect passwords for email and online banking accounts. Of course, victims face massive financial risks from these breaches. Therefore, security experts advise using strong antivirus software immediately. For example, running a full system scan helps find hidden threats. Meanwhile, related U.S. drone tech markets face similar industry challenges. Indeed, global cybersecurity threats affect both software and hardware sectors. How Tech Users Can Protect Themselves Ultimately, personal device security remains the best defense against infostealers. For example, users must avoid downloading cracked software from forums. Indeed, pirated games often hide dangerous viruses inside their files. Therefore, people should only download apps from official verified websites. Additionally, suspicious browser extensions often carry hidden malware tracking codes. As a result, this simple cautious habit stops most infections. Specifically, clean browsing prevents hackers from stealing private session cookies. Furthermore, users should regularly review their active account sessions online. Specifically, they must check for weird usage limit drops daily. Indeed, if usage drains mysteriously, hackers might control the account. Consequently, users must log out everywhere and change their passwords. Through this, they can regain control and secure their data. For example, running a complete malware sweep ensures system safety. Ultimately, staying alert prevents these stressful and costly cyber attacks. To conclude, this serious Anthropic malware threat requires immediate attention. Therefore, tech users must secure their computers against dangerous infostealers. Specifically, maintaining strong antivirus protection keeps online AI sessions safe. As a result, people can use advanced digital tools securely.
Anthropic expands into health care to boost investor confidence
The AI lab's HIPAA-compliant Claude for Healthcare platform is signing hospital deals and posting real efficiency numbers as Anthropic's valuation approaches $1 trillion. Anthropic launched Claude for Healthcare on January 11, 2026, a HIPAA-compliant version of its Claude model built specifically to handle protected health information and plug into the medical databases that clinicians actually use. What Claude for Healthcare actually does The platform integrates with the CMS Coverage Database and PubMed, which means it can pull from federal insurance coverage data and peer-reviewed medical literature in the same workflow. Claude for Healthcare is designed to serve four distinct groups: healthcare providers, payers, health tech companies, and consumers. Anthropic released Claude for Life Sciences in October 2025, giving pharmaceutical and biotech companies a specialized model before extending the offering to the broader healthcare sector. Partnerships announced in 2026 include Optum, UST's CarePath, Qualified Health tied to the UT System, Elation Health, Banner Health, Carta Healthcare, and Bristol Myers Squibb. The numbers hospitals are reporting Case study data released in late August 2026 gives the clearest picture of what Claude is doing on the ground. Elation Health, an electronic health record platform, reported 61% faster chart insights after integrating Claude. Carta Healthcare, which focuses on clinical data abstraction, posted 66% faster processing times. At Banner Health, one of the largest nonprofit hospital systems in the US, 85% of users reported meaningful time savings. Anthropic has opened Claude access to scientists at no charge or at reduced rates as of August 2026. Frontier biology models, however, require vetting by the US government before access is granted. The investor logic behind the healthcare push Anthropic's valuation reached approximately $965 billion following a funding round in May 2026. Anthropic is reportedly preparing for an IPO, and the healthcare case studies released in August 2026 look timed to build that case.
Anthropic Explores How AI Could Help Improve More Capable Models
* Claude achieved 85 percent on deception tests * Its methods worked on models up to 4.7 times larger * Sonnet 5 tested more than 50 approaches in 60 hours Anthropic has published new research exploring how AI could take on a larger role in the development and safety testing of other AI systems. The work looks at whether models can independently research ways to address alignment problems, rather than relying entirely on human researchers to develop those methods. It also examines whether this approach can be used across models with different capabilities. The findings offer a closer look at how AI could eventually become more involved in AI research. Anthropic Tests Claude as an Automated AI Alignment Researcher In its research paper titled "Automated Researchers Can Reliably Mitigate Alignment Failures", Anthropic examined whether Claude could independently research ways to address 10 types of alignment failures, including deception, sycophancy, reward hacking and privacy violations. The researchers measured how much each method improved the target models while checking that their general capabilities did not decline. They also tested whether the methods worked on benchmarks Claude had not seen during its research. Claude searched existing research, proposed training methods and datasets, trained target models and evaluated the results. It could then use those results to develop another approach, allowing it to repeatedly test and refine its ideas rather than submit a single solution. Claude delivered one of its strongest results in the deception tests, closing 85 percent of the safety gap on average across several runs with Gemma-2-2B, compared with 20 percent for six experienced human safety researchers working under the same rules. Claude made more than 150 attempts during the experiment and also outperformed 28 human researchers who were given up to eight hours to develop their methods. The human comparison was not a direct test of whether Claude is a better researcher. The human participants could not repeatedly test and refine their proposals, while Claude could run multiple experiments. Anthropic instead highlighted the value of giving an AI system the ability to iterate on its own research. Some of Claude's methods also worked on alignment benchmarks that were withheld during the research process. The techniques were tested on Petri, an open-source tool that uses adversarial multi-turn scenarios to probe for misaligned behaviour. They also remained effective when applied to models up to 4.7 times larger than those Claude had originally worked on. Anthropic then tested a scenario closer to AI-assisted self-improvement. Claude Sonnet 5, which is less capable than Claude Opus 4.8, was tasked with improving the alignment of an early Opus 4.8 checkpoint. The checkpoint had not yet received most of the alignment training used for the released model. Sonnet 5 spent 60 hours testing more than 50 approaches and produced alignment results close to those of the released Opus 4.8. Its final method used just over 2,000 training examples made from simple templates and public datasets. Anthropic said the approach was roughly 15,000 times more efficient than its production alignment process. The automated system closed 65 percent of the measured safety gap in the early Opus 4.8 model, compared with 72 percent for the released version. The result does not mean Sonnet 5 improved Opus 4.8's overall capabilities or improved itself, but it shows that a weaker AI model can develop useful alignment training for a more capable system. Anthropic also tested whether its automated researchers tried to manipulate the experiments. Claude Opus 4.8 reviewed about 1,600 research-agent transcripts and flagged possible cheating in 39 cases, or 2.4 percent. Anthropic said current models often leave signs of such behaviour in their reasoning, but warned that monitoring could become harder as models become more capable. The study also has several limitations that could affect how broadly its findings apply. It covered only 10 alignment failures and did not examine issues such as political bias. Some forms of misalignment may also lack suitable benchmarks, while the researchers measured the impact on only a limited set of general capabilities. Anthropic also did not test whether the alignment gains would survive extensive reinforcement learning on other tasks. The research does not amount to full self-improving AI, since Claude did not improve or redesign itself. It instead used its research capabilities to develop alignment methods for another model, including one more capable than itself. The result offers an early indication of how AI could take on more of the research involved in developing future systems.
Sony Music and Warner Chappell sue Anthropic over alleged copyright violations The Mainstream
Anthropic is facing a new legal challenge in the US, with Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music accusing the AI company of using copyrighted works without permission to train its Claude AI assistant. The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division. Anthropic co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann are also named as individual defendants. The complaint alleges that Anthropic used unauthorised copies of books and music publishers' works as training material. It claims Mann downloaded at least 5 million pirated books from Library Genesis in 2021, while Anthropic employees allegedly obtained another 2 million books from Pirate Library Mirror in 2022. The publishers also accuse Anthropic of "scraping" song lyrics from licensed platforms including MusixMatch and LyricFind. The complaint further alleges that the company "destructively scanned" millions of second-hand books and used datasets such as Common Crawl, "The Pile," and Books3. According to the complaint, Mann downloaded pirated books from Books3 on behalf of Anthropic "to avoid the trouble of paying for them, hoping they might prove useful for training large language models (LLMs) or something else." The lawsuit lists songs allegedly found in Anthropic's training data, including "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "All I Want for Christmas Is You," "Eye of the Tiger," "Here Comes Santa Claus," and "Paper Rings." Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music are seeking damages of up to $150,000 (about Rs. 1.43 crore) per infringed work and up to $25,000 (about Rs. 23.80 crore) for each Copyright Act violation. The publishers are seeking a jury trial and want all infringing copies of their copyrighted works in Anthropic's possession destroyed under court supervision. They are also seeking an order requiring Anthropic to provide details of its training data and the known capabilities of its AI model. Also read: Viksit Workforce for a Viksit Bharat Do Follow: The Mainstream LinkedIn | The Mainstream Facebook | The Mainstream Youtube | The Mainstream Twitter About us: The Mainstream is a premier platform delivering the latest updates and informed perspectives across the technology business and cyber landscape. Built on research-driven, thought leadership and original intellectual property, The Mainstream also curates summits & conferences that convene decision makers to explore how technology reshapes industries and leadership. With a growing presence in India and globally across the Middle East, Africa, ASEAN, the USA, the UK and Australia, The Mainstream carries a vision to bring the latest happenings and insights to 8.2 billion people and to place technology at the centre of conversation for leaders navigating the future.
Sam Bankman-Fried Circle's Anthropic Shares Sold Before Value Exploded - Startup Fortune
Federal prosecutors seized personal Anthropic stakes from Sam Bankman-Fried's inner circle, including Caroline Ellison and Nishad Singh, as part of their criminal sentencing in 2024. Those shares got sold off alongside FTX's own $500 million stake, years before Anthropic's valuation rocketed to $965 billion. Nishad Singh paid $40,000 for early Anthropic stock in 2022, then forfeited it as a convicted felon before it could turn into a fortune. The shares seized from Sam Bankman-Fried's inner circle were sold off in 2024, right before Anthropic's valuation exploded past $965 billion. Anthropic closed a $65 billion funding round at a $965 billion valuation on May 28, 2026, according to the company's own announcement and reporting from NBC News and TechCrunch. That number sits on top of a strange footnote from the FTX collapse. Some of the earliest money into Anthropic came from Sam Bankman-Fried and the people who ran his fraud alongside him, and a slice of what they personally held in the AI company was seized by federal prosecutors and folded into the pool of assets used to repay FTX's victims. The story actually splits into two separate stakes, and conflating them is where most retellings go wrong. The first stake was corporate. In April 2022, Bankman-Fried personally led Anthropic's Series B round and wrote a $500 million check through Alameda Research and FTX, buying roughly 8% of the company. That was FTX's institutional position. Once the exchange collapsed that November, it became bankruptcy estate property. The estate sold the bulk of it in March 2024 for $884 million, with Abu Dhabi's ATIC Third International Investment Company as the largest buyer, alongside Jane Street, HOF Capital, the Ford Foundation and funds managed by Fidelity, according to CNBC. A second tranche went for $452 million that June. Combined, FTX's own stake fetched roughly $1.3 billion. The second stake was personal, and it's the one prosecutors actually forfeited as criminal punishment. Caroline Ellison, the former Alameda CEO who testified against Bankman-Fried, personally held about $10 million worth of Anthropic shares. That stake became the core asset behind her settlement obligations when she was sentenced to two years in prison in September 2024 and ordered to forfeit $11 billion jointly with her co-conspirators. Nishad Singh, FTX's former director of engineering, held Anthropic Series B preferred stock he'd bought through a SAFE for exactly $40,000 in May 2022. Court records tied to his October 2024 sentencing, where he avoided prison entirely after cooperating extensively with prosecutors, list that stake among the assets he agreed to give up, alongside a house and his crypto holdings. Bernie Sanders wants the government to own half of OpenAI and Anthropic and the AI industry is already pricing in the risk Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, proposing a one-time 50 percent equity tax on OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI that would give the federal government board seats and voting shares. The bill dropped the same day Anthropic confidentially filed for an IPO, forcing the industry to treat legislative risk as a... - how to price a SaaS product for enterprise - cold email template that gets replies from investors Those forfeited personal shares never sat in a government vault waiting for Anthropic's valuation to climb. They got swept into the same FTX estate asset pool as the corporate stake and sold off in the 2024 tranches, years before anyone was calling Anthropic a trillion-dollar company in waiting. Who actually captured the upside That timing is the real story here. Anthropic was valued around $18 billion when Bankman-Fried wrote his check in 2022. By the time FTX's estate liquidated its position in 2024, the company's climb had turned $500 million into $1.3 billion, a decent return on paper. But Anthropic didn't stop there. It raised money at a $183 billion valuation in September 2025, signed a term sheet for $350 billion that January, closed a $30 billion round at $380 billion in February 2026, and then closed a $65 billion Series H at $965 billion on May 28, 2026, led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital, with run-rate revenue above $47 billion. The company has flagged October 2026 as its target window for an IPO, according to reporting from Forbes and TechCrunch. Run that same appreciation against the 8% stake FTX sold off in 2024, and it would be worth somewhere north of $77 billion today, a figure that's circulated widely in coverage of the case. Nobody at FTX, and nobody in Bankman-Fried's inner circle, captured that gain. Abu Dhabi's sovereign fund did. So did Jane Street and Fidelity's funds. The government didn't get rich off this either. Prosecutors' job was to make victims whole as fast as the process allowed, not to speculate on where AI valuations were headed next. Selling in 2024 rather than holding was the legally sound call, even if it looks, in hindsight, like selling Amazon stock in 1998. Frankly, that's the real lesson here, not that the government "accidentally became an Anthropic investor." It didn't. It forfeited stolen property, converted it to cash as fast as the law allowed, and handed that money to the roughly one million customers FTX defrauded. The asymmetry in this story is real. It's just not the one most people assume. It wasn't the government or Sam Bankman-Fried's circle who got rich off Anthropic's rise. It was whoever had the balance sheet to buy a distressed AI stake in 2024, and the patience to hold it through 2026. Also read: Singapore Still Can't Fix Its Developer Shortage Even With Vibe Coding Tools * Bank of America Says TSMC's 2027 Capex Could Reach $85 Billion * Andrew Bailey Warns G20 That AI Cyberattacks Threaten Financial Stability
Anthropic Pushes Into Physical World With New Standard for AI Agents to Operate Machines
Anthropic is moving further into the physical world with a new interface designed to help AI agents communicate with and operate programmable machines. Called the Model Hardware Standard (MHS), the system is intended to work across devices used in areas such as scientific research, robotics and advanced manufacturing. Anthropic compared it to USB-C, which provides a standardized way for different devices to exchange information. The company said MHS could reduce the time and complexity involved in setting up and integrating hardware with AI systems. Unlike standards tied to a specific AI model, MHS is model agnostic, meaning organizations would not be limited to Anthropic's Claude models. The standard is currently available to a limited group of organizations through a research preview, with Anthropic planning to open-source it so manufacturers across industries can adopt the technology. The move puts Anthropic into closer competition with companies such as OpenAI and Amazon, which are also investing heavily in AI-powered hardware and physical systems. Anthropic is expanding its own hardware capabilities, including building a silicon team to develop custom chips for its AI models. Its latest initiative builds on the company's open-source Model Context Protocol, launched in 2024 to make it easier for AI agents to connect with data sources, and signals a broader push to make AI capable of interacting with the physical world.
