FTX Foundation’s Future Fund team resigns, condemns exchange’s behavior

The team behind FTX Future Fund, a project of the FTX Foundation, has quit.

“We were shocked and immensely saddened to learn of the recent events at FTX,” the team wrote in a post on Effective Altruism Forum, adding: “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.”

FTX Future Fund was launched in February of this year to improve humanity’s long-term prospects. It planned to distribute at least $100 million and up to $1 billion this year. The foundation itself was established last year by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. But in a shocking turn of events over the last week, Bankman-Fried’s net worth has declined from around $16 billion to less than $1 billion, according to data tracked by Bloomberg.

FTX reportedly tapped customer assets to fund the risky bets of its affiliated trading firm, Alameda Research — setting up its implosion. Alameda is said to owe FTX about $10 billion. FTX paused customer withdrawals earlier this week and the crisis forced the exchange to scramble for emergency funding. Alameda Research has since been shut down.

“We don’t yet have a full picture of what went wrong, and we are following the news online as it unfolds,” the FTX Future Fund team wrote in the post, adding: “But to the extent that the leadership of FTX may have engaged in deception or dishonesty, we condemn that behavior in the strongest possible terms.”

The FTX Foundation also runs FTX Climate and FTX Community philanthropic projects. The foundation has donated over $190 million to date, according to FTX’s website. It is possible it may no longer be operational.

The Block has reached out to FTX for comment.

Bankman-Fried appeared determined to raise funding yesterday, despite regulators having reportedly started investigations into FTX — including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the U.S. Justice Department. Yesterday, the Securities Commission of the Bahamas froze the assets of FTX Digital Markets and related parties. 

Earlier today, The Block reported that FTX’s head of institutional sales, Zane Tackett, resigned. He added that he and his team were “left completely in the dark” about FTX’s insolvency.

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