Anthropic just published a support page that should terrify anyone holding its shares on the secondary market. "Any sale or transfer of Anthropic stock, or any interest in Anthropic stock, that has not been approved by our Board of Directors is void and will not be recognized on our books and records." Void. Not restricted. Not pending review. Void. That means if you bought Anthropic shares through Forge, Hiive, or any other secondary platform without board approval, you are not a stockholder. You have no stockholder rights. Your transaction is invalid. It gets worse. Anthropic says it does not permit SPVs to hold its stock. Any transfer to an SPV is void. Investment funds claiming to offer indirect exposure are "most likely relying on mechanisms that attempt to circumvent our transfer restrictions." Forward contracts, tokenized securities, synthetic exposure products, all of it potentially worthless. Their advice to investors: "Assume that it is invalid." There is a multi-billion dollar secondary market in Anthropic shares right now. Platforms are pricing the stock at $265-$1,400+ per share based on a $380 billion valuation. Real people have put real money into these positions. And Anthropic just told them none of it counts. This is the purest possible illustration of counterparty risk. You can buy a share of a company and have the company itself declare your ownership void because you bought it through the wrong channel.
