Team behind Sam Bankman-Fried’s philanthropy FTX Future Fund quit

Jennifer Schonberger
·Senior Reporter
·2 min read
24

The entire team behind the FTX Future Fund, the Sam Bankman-Fried philanthropy, has resigned in the wake of FTX’s unraveling, leaving many grants unfunded.

“We are now unable to perform our work or process grants, and we have fundamental questions about the legitimacy and integrity of the business operations that were funding the FTX Foundation and the Future Fund,” the team wrote in an open letter published online Thursday. “As a result, we resigned earlier today.”

The FTX Future Fund, one of two philanthropies of FTX and Bankman-Fried, invested in moonshot projects focused on improving humankind in areas like biosecurity and AI safety. The fund had lofty ambitions, announcing earlier this year that it would invest $1 billion in new projects, averaging $100 million a year.

Some of those who took grants have taken to Twitter to lament.

“I am more than aware that I am funded by @ftxfuturefund. And likely the fraud was already happening when the money was donated. That weighs on me,” Nathan Young wrote on Twitter. “I am horrified by the arrogance of this whole charade. And by its all the people it will hurt.”

Representations of cryptocurrencies are seen in front of displayed FTX logo in this illustration taken November 10, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Representations of cryptocurrencies are seen in front of displayed FTX logo in this illustration taken November 10, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

This is yet another domino to fall as FTX faced a run that led to a liquidity crunch and ultimate failure.

The action came before FTX — once the top third or fourth most-used crypto exchange — filed for bankruptcy Friday and founder Bankman-Fried resigned as chief executive.

Bankman-Fried had positioned himself as a philanthropic executive, pledging to give away the majority of his wealth. As FTX has collapsed and Bankman-Fried’s wealth has evaporated, he’s no longer on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Members of Bankman-Fried’s philanthropy said they don’t yet have a full picture of what went wrong, but condemned any potential "deception or dishonesty...in the strongest possible terms,” they wrote.

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