The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has directed registered investment advisers to verify that special purpose vehicles they manage actually hold genuine ownership or exposure to the private shares they promote, as part of a broader sweep not aimed at any single firm. SPVs pool capital for stakes in unlisted companies and have become a main path to private AI names such as OpenAI and Anthropic, some of whose interests have also appeared onchain as tokens. Estimated private valuations from DeFiLlama's pre-IPO tracker as of August 27 put Anthropic at $1.38 trillion and OpenAI at $900.29 billion across 182 tracked companies, while Stanford's AI Index for 2026 showed global private AI investment up 127.5% in 2025 to $344.7 billion, including $170.9 billion for generative AI. OpenAI and Anthropic have warned that unauthorized SPV interests, tokenized interests and forward contracts are not recognized and carry no economic value, with Anthropic barring SPVs from acquiring its shares. On August 10, 2026, the SEC charged Adit Ventures Management, CEO Eric Munson and three affiliated general partners with fraud over pre-IPO holdings including SpaceX and Klarna; without admitting the allegations, they consented to judgments including disgorgement, civil penalties and a three-year associational bar for Munson. Tokenization does not settle whether underlying shares are genuinely held, and SEC divisions have said moving a security onchain does not change federal securities law application.