Philanthropic FTX Foundation Sunsets Operations Amid Bankrupt Exchange’s Fallout

The philanthropic effort created by the troubled crypto exchange FTX has detailed it is sunsetting operations and told the community that members were “shocked and immensely saddened” by the turn of events that transpired around the trading platform.

While FTX was at one time valued at $32 billion, the crypto exchange executives spent significant amounts of money donating to different causes. For instance, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) donated a lot of money to Democratic super PACs and U.S. president Joe Biden. SBF’s mother, Barbara Fried, co-founded the political fundraising organization Mind the Gap. His mother also co-founded the get-out-the-vote (GOTV) organization the Center for Voter Information.

SBF claimed to be about altruism, in fact, he and his inner circle of ten living in a Bahamas condo are allegedly proponents of “effective altruism.” “For many of my friends their answer is to do unbelievably good things for the world just by working — choosing which organizations to work with and directly impacting important things,” SBF told Forbes in an interview earlier this year.

FTX started an altruism fund and created a team called the FTX Foundation to disperse grants to philanthropic efforts. On Nov. 10, 2022, however, executives of the FTX Foundation said that it was closing down shop, and they were dismayed by FTX’s failure.

“We were shocked and immensely saddened to learn of the recent events at FTX,” the FTX Foundation wrote. “Our hearts go out to the thousands of FTX customers whose finances may have been jeopardized or destroyed.”

The FTX Foundation executives added:

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. As a result, we resigned earlier today.

Following the FTX Foundation shutdown, the next day, FTX parent firm West Realm Shires Services, Alameda Research, and approximately 130 additional affiliated companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware.

What do you think about the FTX Foundation sunsetting its philanthropic efforts after FTX collapsed? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.