The collapse of the crypto exchange FTX and its grant-making organization, the FTX Future Fund, left some prominent university academics without cash and others seeking to repay donations before they were obliged to.
The FTX Future Fund, launched in February 2022, was part of the FTX Foundation, the charity arm of Sam Bankman-crypto Fried’s empire, which collapsed last year in what U.S. authorities called an “epic” fraud.
Manhattan federal prosecutors have accused the FTX founder of diverting billions in client cash to cover losses at his hedge fund, Alameda Research. Denies guilt.
The fund’s team posted on an altruistic forum on Nov. 11, 2022, the same day FTX filed for bankruptcy, announcing that they had quit and would likely not fulfill their grant pledges.
“We truly regret the difficult, terrible, and stressful position that many of you are currently in,” Nick Beckstead, Leopold Aschenbrenner, Avital Balwit, Ketan Ramakrishnan, and William MacAskill wrote.
Beckstead, Aschenbrenner, Ramakrishnan, and MacAskill did not answer this story. After several LinkedIn, Twitter, and email requests, foalwit said nothing.
FTX representatives declined to comment on whether the Foundation is involved in the bankruptcy proceedings.
After losing FTX funding, Ph.D. student Korbinian Kettnaker told Reuters he had to withdraw from Cambridge’s Philosophy of computer science program.
According to a Twitter profile, Bankman-Fried financed the FTX Future Fund, which funded research to “better humanity’s long-term prospects.” Without identifying its endowment, it announced it would spend $100 million to $1 billion in its first year.
According to archival images of its now-defunct website, the fund paid $132 million on 262 awards and investments in June 2022.
At least 20 outstanding researchers at Cornell, Princeton, Brown, and Cambridge earned funding of more than $100,000 apiece, according to the website. Reuters calculated that university-linked research projects got almost $13 million from these announcements.
Cornell, Princeton, Brown, and Cambridge declined Reuters’ requests for comment.
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