FTX Future Fund
FTX Future Fund
The FTX Future Fund was a major longtermist philanthropic initiative that distributed 132M USD in grants (including ~32M USD to AI safety) before collapsing with FTX's November 2022 bankruptcy, exposing structural fragilities in EA-adjacent AI safety funding concentration and prompting significant community reflection on governance, 'earn to give' ethics, and funding diversification.
Quick Assessment
| Dimension | Assessment |
|---|---|
| Type | Philanthropic fund / grantmaking organization |
| Founded | February 2022 |
| Dissolved | November 2022 |
| Primary Funder | Sam Bankman-Fried (via FTX Foundation) |
| Total Grants Awarded | $132 million (262 grants, by June 2022) |
| AI Safety Funding | ≈$32 million (Feb–Aug 2022) |
| Focus Areas | AI safety, biorisk reduction, pandemic preparedness, effective altruism |
| Status | Ceased operations; FTX bankruptcy filed November 2022 |
Key Links
| Source | Link |
|---|---|
| Official Website (Wayback Machine snapshot) | ftxfuturefund.org (archived) |
| Wikipedia | FTX (Wikipedia) |
| EA Forum Announcement | Announcing the Future Fund |
| EA Forum Resignation Post | The FTX Future Fund team has resigned |
Overview
The FTX Future Fund was a philanthropic initiative launched in February 2022 by the FTX Foundation, a charitable arm of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange. The fund was primarily financed by FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, with additional contributions from executives Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, and Nishad Singh.1 Its stated mission was to make grants and investments in ambitious projects improving humanity's long-term prospects, with particular emphasis on areas aligned with Centre for Effective Altruism's priorities and the broader Coefficient Giving-adjacent longtermist funding ecosystem.
At its launch, the fund announced plans to distribute at least $100 million in 2022 and potentially up to $1 billion, positioning itself as a transformative new source of funding for existential risk research and related causes.2 It supported work on safe artificial intelligence development, catastrophic biorisk reduction, pandemic preparedness, institutional improvements, and related longtermist priorities. Within its first four months of operation, it had awarded 262 grants and investments totaling $132 million, though reporting at the time noted uncertainty about how much of that sum had actually been disbursed.3
The fund collapsed abruptly in November 2022 when FTX filed for bankruptcy following revelations that the exchange had allegedly misused customer deposits. Five senior Future Fund officials resigned on November 10, 2022, stating that it appeared likely many committed grants would go unfulfilled and citing fundamental questions about the legitimacy of the business operations funding the foundation.4 The collapse left numerous nonprofits and research organizations without funding they had anticipated, dealt significant reputational damage to the effective altruism movement, and prompted broader reflection about the risks of concentrating philanthropic resources in a single source tied to a for-profit enterprise.
History
Launch and Early Operations (February–June 2022)
The FTX Future Fund was publicly announced in early 2022, with an initial open application deadline of March 21, 2022.5 The fund emphasized bold and decisive grantmaking, explicitly seeking projects capable of deploying tens or hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Its priorities reflected a longtermist philosophical orientation: the fund was interested in funding initiatives that addressed risks to humanity's long-run future, including AI alignment, pandemic preparedness, and improvements to global governance and institutions.
In addition to direct grants to nonprofits and investments in for-profit organizations, the fund operated a regranting program, in which selected individuals received allocations to distribute to projects they identified independently.6 This structure was intended to extend the fund's reach into areas where the core team had less expertise or networks.
By June 2022, the fund had awarded 262 grants totaling $132 million—a notably rapid pace for a newly launched philanthropic organization.3 Notable recipients included HelixNano ($10 million for coronavirus vaccine research), SecureBio ($1.2 million for pandemic early warning systems), Stanford University's Center for Innovation in Global Health ($1.5 million), Sherlock Biosciences ($2 million for CRISPR-based infectious disease diagnostics), and the Centre for Effective Altruism (nearly $14 million).37 The fund also provided $1.25 million to the Alignment Research Center and $1.5 million to Cornell University for AI safety research.8 Redwood Research received funding sufficient for 18 months of operations.9
AI Safety Funding
AI safety represented one of the fund's most prominent areas of focus. Between February and August 2022, the fund awarded approximately $32 million to AI safety projects.10 Beyond direct AI safety grants, FTX-affiliated funding had reportedly reached or been promised to more than 70 AI-related organizations in total, with amounts exceeding $530 million when including broader AI-related commitments such as a reported $500 million to Anthropic.8 The fund's AI safety orientation reflected a broader longtermist view that risks from advanced AI systems—including the possibility of artificial general intelligence posing catastrophic dangers—warranted significant philanthropic attention.
The fund's rapid entry into AI safety funding was significant in scale: one analysis noted that if the fund had met its $100 million annual target, longtermist giving would have grown from roughly 30% of all effective altruism donations to approximately 50%.11 To provide additional context, Coefficient Giving—the largest pre-existing funder of AI safety research—had itself awarded roughly $150 million to AI safety and biosecurity causes across all years prior to 2022, making the Future Fund's compressed timeline notable even by the standards of the broader EA funding ecosystem.10
The FTX Collapse and Fund Dissolution (November 2022)
On November 2, 2022, CoinDesk reported that Alameda Research—FTX's affiliated trading firm—held a large position in FTX's native FTT token, triggering a crisis of confidence in the exchange. On November 11, 2022, FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and Sam Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO.12
The day before the bankruptcy filing, on November 10, 2022, five senior Future Fund officials resigned in a public statement. The five signatories—Nick Beckstead, Leopold Aschenbrenner, Avital Balwit, Ketan Ramakrishnan, and Will MacAskill—wrote that it appeared likely there were many committed grants that the Future Fund would be unable to honor, and that they had fundamental questions about the legitimacy and integrity of the business operations that had funded the foundation.4 The team stated they had been unaware of any wrongdoing and expressed that they had believed they were doing good work with legitimately earned funds.
Post-collapse investigations revealed that the fund had effectively been financed using money looted from FTX account holders, though available evidence indicated that Future Fund staff members had no knowledge that the funding source was compromised.13 Bankruptcy proceedings raised the possibility that creditors might seek to claw back some of the funds already distributed as grants, and grants awarded after August 11, 2022 were required to be returned as part of the bankruptcy process.310
Some recipient organizations distanced themselves from their FTX funding following the collapse. Stanford University, for example, removed its public announcement of the $1.5 million grant from its Center for Innovation in Global Health.7
Structure and Operations
The fund operated through several mechanisms. It made direct grants to nonprofit organizations and individuals, and investments in for-profit organizations whose work aligned with its mission. The regranting program extended its reach further: selected regranters received allocations they could deploy to projects they identified, with latitude to fund research hires, operational expenses, or further sub-grants.6
The fund described itself as moving quickly and prioritizing "massively scalable" projects—those capable of absorbing large sums without loss of effectiveness. Applications were open to both nonprofit and for-profit entities, and the fund expressed willingness to fund early-stage projects and incubate new initiatives, including building innovation ecosystems in areas like climate resilience and African blue economy sustainability.5
Leadership of the fund included Nick Beckstead, a former Coefficient Giving program officer, who served as the fund's primary leader before resigning following the FTX collapse.7 Will MacAskill, the Oxford philosopher closely associated with effective altruism and longtermism, served as an outside advisor to the fund and publicly stepped back from his involvement following the collapse; he was not among the five staff members who formally resigned.14
Criticisms and Concerns
Rapid and Undiscriminating Grantmaking
Even before the FTX collapse, critics within the effective altruism community raised concerns about the fund's pace and oversight. One analysis described the fund as distributing unusually large sums without sufficient long-term evaluation, and argued that the emphasis on AI risk—premised on assumptions such as a significant probability of artificial general intelligence posing existential threats within 50 years—risked funding wasteful or counterproductive projects.15 The regranting program drew particular scrutiny: critics observed that regranters could receive funds for their own salaries and then make further sub-grants without strict controls, creating what was characterized as incentive structures prone to self-perpetuating "regranting chains" with limited accountability.156
A review of applications conducted by one grantmaker found that of 630 applications reviewed, only 37 were selected as high-quality, which critics interpreted as indicating that the fund's speed may have outpaced the supply of genuinely strong projects.16
Association with Fraud
The most severe criticism of the fund stems from its ultimate association with fraud at FTX. The FTX estate later filed lawsuits alleging that insiders had funneled funds taken from creditors toward charitable giving in ways that served reputational purposes.17 One employee faced a lawsuit of up to $71.6 million over allegations of poor investment diligence.17 Critics argued more broadly that Sam Bankman-Fried's philanthropic profile—including his prominent association with effective altruism and the "earn to give" philosophy—had helped generate goodwill and public credibility for FTX that obscured warning signs of the underlying fraud.18
Concerns about Bankman-Fried's conduct had reportedly circulated within EA-adjacent communities before the collapse. A November 2022 Time investigation documented that concerns about management practices and financial controls at Alameda Research were raised among people who had worked there as early as 2018, and that some of these concerns were known to individuals connected to EA circles.19 Critics questioned why these concerns had not led to greater scrutiny of FTX's philanthropic activities. The FTX estate's own post-bankruptcy filings confirm that Alameda had operated with minimal financial controls and that customer funds were commingled with trading capital for years prior to the collapse—facts that, in retrospect, were detectable through operational due diligence.17
Impact on Effective Altruism
The collapse substantially affected the effective altruism movement's reputation and funding landscape. The Future Fund had grown to represent a significant portion of EA-adjacent philanthropy in a short period, and many organizations had structured plans around anticipated FTX funding. Jeff Kaufman, an EA-affiliated blogger, noted that because EA organizations tend to concentrate funding relationships within a relatively small number of major donors—as opposed to commercial creditors who diversify across many counterparties—the loss of FTX funding was disproportionately disruptive to the organizations affected.20
The episode prompted reflection within the EA community about the risks of the "earn to give" model—wherein individuals pursue high-earning careers in order to donate proceeds to effective causes—and whether the model creates structural pressures that may compromise ethical behavior. The EA Forum resignation post from the Future Fund team generated extensive community discussion, with commentators debating the extent to which the fund's staff bore responsibility for failing to identify warning signs, and how EA funding structures should be reformed to reduce single-source concentration risk.21
Governance and Oversight Failures
Post-collapse analysis identified governance failures at FTX that should have raised red flags for due diligence. FTX reportedly lacked a chief financial officer for significant periods, had an inexperienced chief operating officer, and had no proper board of directors.17 Critics argued these were detectable warning signs that funders and affiliated organizations, including the Future Fund, did not adequately investigate before accepting or building around FTX's philanthropic commitments.17
Longtermism and Global Health Tensions
Some global health researchers and practitioners expressed concern about the fund's longtermist orientation more broadly, arguing that large sums devoted to speculative long-run risks came at the expense of more tractable near-term global health needs. While acknowledging some overlap in areas like pandemic preparedness, critics expressed wariness about a funding landscape in which longtermist priorities were displacing global health and development work within the EA ecosystem.7 Others questioned specific grant decisions, including some pandemic preparedness funding that critics characterized as potentially counterproductive.
Impact on AI Safety Funding Infrastructure
The collapse of the FTX Future Fund exposed a concentration risk in AI safety research funding. The fund had rapidly grown into one of the largest single sources of AI safety philanthropic capital—awarding approximately $32 million to AI safety projects in roughly six months—and its sudden disappearance created a funding gap that affected organizations across the field.10 Grants awarded after August 11, 2022 were required to be returned as part of the bankruptcy process, compounding the disruption for recently funded projects.10
Observers noted that the concentration of resources from a single source with no institutional independence from a for-profit exchange represented a structural fragility. Discussions followed within the AI safety and EA communities about the need for more diversified and resilient funding mechanisms. Some organizations subsequently sought funding from Coefficient Giving, individual donors, and newer philanthropic vehicles such as Manifund, which was established in part to provide a more distributed grantmaking infrastructure for AI safety and EA-adjacent causes.22
The episode is frequently cited in discussions of funding ecosystem design as an illustration of the risks associated with single-funder dependence, particularly when that funder's capital originates from an illiquid or operationally opaque source.
Key Uncertainties
- The full extent of grant clawbacks from the bankruptcy estate remains unclear as of the page's last edit date (February 2026). Creditors had the legal basis to attempt recovery of funds distributed in the months before the bankruptcy filing, and grants after August 11, 2022 were formally required to be returned, but the actual outcomes of individual recovery proceedings are not fully documented in available public sources.
- The degree to which Future Fund leadership was aware of irregularities at FTX prior to the collapse is disputed. An independent investigation by law firm Mintz, conducted on behalf of Effective Ventures, reportedly found no evidence that Future Fund personnel knew of issues at FTX prior to the collapse. A prediction market question tracking whether substantial contrary evidence would emerge by end of 2025 remained open as of the last edit date, with market participants assigning low but nonzero probability to that outcome.23
- The long-term net impact on AI safety and longtermist research funding is difficult to assess. The field subsequently sought alternative funding sources, but whether the reputational and financial disruption produced lasting structural change in funding patterns—or was largely absorbed—is not yet clear from available evidence.
Sources
Footnotes
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Announcing the Future Fund — Announcing the Future Fund - EA Forum, February 2022 ↩
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FTX Future Fund plans to deploy $1B for safer AI and reduced biorisk — FTX Future Fund plans to deploy $1B for safer AI and reduced biorisk - Investing.com, 2022 ↩
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Crypto company's collapse strands scientists — Crypto company's collapse strands scientists - Science, November 2022 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4
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The FTX Future Fund team has resigned — The FTX Future Fund team has resigned - EA Forum, November 10, 2022 ↩ ↩2
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The Future Fund's regranting program — The Future Fund's regranting program - EA Forum, 2022 ↩ ↩2 ↩3
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What will FTX's collapse mean for global health and development? — What will FTX's collapse mean for global health and development? - Devex, November 2022 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4
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How FTX's collapse impacts AI — How FTX's collapse impacts AI - DeepLearning.AI, November 2022 ↩ ↩2
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Announcing the Future Fund — grants list — Announcing the Future Fund — grants list - EA Forum, February 2022 (Redwood Research grant described in original announcement and grant registry) ↩
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An overview of the AI safety funding situation — An overview of the AI safety funding situation - LessWrong ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5
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FTX Future Fund and longtermism — FTX Future Fund and longtermism - EA Forum, 2022 ↩
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FTX timeline — FTX timeline - Euronews, November 2022 ↩
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Citation rc-7b23 ↩
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The FTX Future Fund team has resigned — The FTX Future Fund team has resigned - EA Forum, November 2022 (MacAskill's advisory role and non-signatory status noted in post and comments) ↩
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Citation rc-2274 ↩
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FTX bankruptcy filings and estate litigation — FTX bankruptcy filings and estate litigation - Kroll (FTX Restructuring), ongoing; supplemented by contemporaneous reporting on lawsuit specifics including the $71.6M suit against an employee for investment diligence failures ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5
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Thoughts on the FTX situation — Thoughts on the FTX situation - EA for Christians, November 2022 ↩
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Sam Bankman-Fried Had a Savior Complex. It Blew Up in His Face — Sam Bankman-Fried Had a Savior Complex. It Blew Up in His Face - Time, November 2022 (documents accounts from former Alameda employees describing management and financial-control concerns dating to 2018–2019, some of which were known to EA-connected individuals) ↩
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If professional investors missed this — If professional investors missed this - Jeff Kaufman, November 2022 ↩
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The FTX crisis highlights a deeper cultural problem within EA — The FTX crisis highlights a deeper cultural problem within EA - EA Forum, 2022 ↩
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Manifund: The AI Safety Research Fund — Manifund: The AI Safety Research Fund - Manifund (note: Manifund is itself an EA-adjacent organization; this citation documents the existence of the fund as a post-FTX diversification effort, not an independent analysis of funding landscape changes) ↩
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Will substantial evidence emerge by end of 2025 showing FTX Future Fund team had strong suspicions of fraud? — Will substantial evidence emerge by end of 2025 showing FTX Future Fund team had strong suspicions of fraud? - Manifold Markets (cited to indicate the state of genuine uncertainty about this question, not as a primary factual source; prediction markets reflect aggregated probabilistic assessments, not evidentiary findings) ↩
References
This Devex article examines the fallout from FTX's bankruptcy on the effective altruism (EA) philanthropic ecosystem, particularly nonprofits in global health, development, and animal welfare that relied on FTX Future Fund grants. Sam Bankman-Fried's 'earning to give' strategy had made him one of EA's most prominent donors, and the collapse left many organizations scrambling for alternative funding while also damaging EA's broader credibility and reputation.
“For example, the Future Fund gave Stanford University’s Center for Innovation in Global Health $1.5 million for seed grants to support innovations to prevent the next pandemic.”
WRONG NUMBERS: The claim states that the fund had awarded 262 grants totaling $132 million by June 2022. The source does not provide the total number of grants awarded or the total amount awarded by June 2022. WRONG NUMBERS: The claim states that SecureBio received $1.2 million for pandemic early warning systems. This information is not present in the source. WRONG NUMBERS: The claim states that the Centre for Effective Altruism received nearly $14 million. This information is not present in the source. UNSUPPORTED: The claim states that the fund provided $1.25 million to the Alignment Research Center. This information is not present in the source. UNSUPPORTED: The claim states that the fund provided $1.5 million to Cornell University for AI safety research. This information is not present in the source. UNSUPPORTED: The claim states that Redwood Research received funding sufficient for 18 months of operations. This information is not present in the source.
Trevor Klee argues that the FTX Future Fund's rapid deployment of massive philanthropic capital creates harmful second-order effects, including attracting opportunistic actors to the EA community and risking counterproductive use of funds. Written in September 2022, before FTX's collapse, the post advocates for slower, more deliberate philanthropic decision-making prioritizing wisdom over speed.
“Specifically, I don’t just think they risk the amounts of money they’re spending being wasted, I think they’re risking them being actively counterproductive.”
“According to Clearer Thinking, they received 630 applications, and winnowed them down to 37, 28 of which agreed to be reviewed publicly in the predictions market.”
A Reuters-compiled timeline documenting the rapid rise and catastrophic collapse of FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried, published on the day FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022. The article traces key events leading to the exchange's downfall, including liquidity concerns, failed acquisition attempts, and eventual bankruptcy filing.
“FTX starts voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings in the United States, along with its U.S. unit, crypto trading firm Alameda Research and nearly 130 other affiliates. Bankman-Fried resigns as CEO.”
On November 10, 2022, the FTX Future Fund team (Nick Beckstead, Leopold Aschenbrenner, Avital Balwit, Ketan Ramakrishnan, and Will MacAskill) announced their resignation following FTX's collapse, citing fundamental questions about the legitimacy of FTX's business operations. They expressed deep regret that many committed grants to EA and AI safety projects would likely go unfulfilled and condemned any deception by FTX leadership.
“We are devastated to say that it looks likely that there are many committed grants that the Future Fund will be unable to honor.”
The source does not mention that the fund was financed using money looted from FTX account holders. The source does not mention bankruptcy proceedings or the clawing back of funds. The source does not mention the date August 11, 2022.
“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.”
The claim states that five senior Future Fund officials resigned, but the source only names six individuals who resigned. The claim mentions the date of resignation as November 10, 2022, but the source indicates the resignation occurred on November 11, 2022.
“The FTX Future Fund team has resigned by Nick_Beckstead , leopold , ab , ketanrama Nov 11 2022”
The source does not explicitly state that Nick Beckstead was the fund's 'primary leader'. The source does not explicitly state that Will MacAskill was an 'outside advisor' to the fund.
A proposed 501(c)(3) nonprofit grantmaking fund focused on AI safety, aiming to expand funding beyond traditional EA/longtermist circles through transparent, accessible grant rounds. The project seeks initial seed funding via Manifund to establish operations under fiscal sponsorship by Anti Entropy. It targets early-stage researchers, interpretability work, and unconventional alignment approaches.
The collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX has created a funding crisis for scientific research organizations. Sam Bankman-Fried's philanthropic foundations, particularly the Future Fund launched in February 2022, had committed hundreds of millions of dollars to research in climate, biodefense, and AI ethics before FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022. With the Future Fund's officials resigning and announcing they cannot honor many committed grants, numerous science projects—including pandemic preparedness research, CRISPR diagnostics, coronavirus vaccine development, and biosecurity initiatives—now face severe funding shortfalls and potential closure.
Jeff Kaufman analyzes the FTX collapse and its implications for the effective altruism community, arguing that while professional investors missing the fraud partially excuses EA, the EA community had far more at stake and thus bore greater responsibility for due diligence. The post distinguishes between EA's situation and that of institutional investors like Sequoia, noting that EA was uniquely dependent on FTX funding and had reputational and mission-critical exposure that investors did not.
“The money FTX planned to donate represented a far greater portion of the EA "portfolio" than FTX did for these institutional investors, The FTX Future Fund was probably the biggest source of EA funding after Open Philanthropy , and was ramping up very quickly.”
The collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX in 2022 threatened over $530 million in funding to 70+ AI-related organizations, many focused on AI safety. Key recipients like Anthropic ($500M) and the Alignment Research Center faced potential clawback of funds in bankruptcy proceedings. The episode highlighted the fragility of AI safety funding and the risks of relying on unvetted donors.
“Future Fund gave $1.5 million to Cornell University and $1.25 million to the Alignment Research Center , an AI safety nonprofit, for research intended to ensure that AI doesn’t militate against humanity’s best interests.”
WRONG NUMBERS: The source states that FTX gave or promised more than $530 million to over 70 AI-related organizations, not that the Future Fund awarded 262 grants totaling $132 million. FABRICATED DETAILS: The source does not mention HelixNano, SecureBio, Stanford University's Center for Innovation in Global Health, Sherlock Biosciences, or the Centre for Effective Altruism. FABRICATED DETAILS: The source does not mention Redwood Research or the length of operations it was funded for.
The FTX Foundation's Future Fund announced a decentralized regranting program in February 2022, giving independent part-time grantmakers discretionary budgets of $250k to several million dollars to distribute over six months. The program aimed to scale philanthropic grantmaking by empowering a broader network of people to identify high-impact opportunities that centralized funders might overlook.
“Our regranting program will offer discretionary budgets to independent part-time grantmakers, to be spent in the next ~6 months.”
The FTX Foundation announced the Future Fund in February 2022, a longtermist philanthropic initiative led by Nick Beckstead, Leopold Aschenbrenner, Will MacAskill, and Ketan Ramakrishnan, committing to distribute $100M–$1B in 2022 for AI safety, biosecurity, institutional improvement, and effective altruism. The fund offered open grant applications, a regranting program for independent grantmakers, and a project ideas competition.
“We’re particularly keen to launch massively scalable projects : projects that could grow to productively spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars per year.”
“The Future Fund is part of the FTX Foundation, a philanthropic foundation funded primarily by Sam Bankman-Fried. FTX Foundation is also funded by major contributions from Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, and Nishad Singh.”
Official restructuring portal for the FTX bankruptcy case, managed by Kroll as the claims and noticing agent. Provides access to court filings, creditor claims, estate litigation documents, and administrative updates related to the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.
This post argues that the FTX collapse and Sam Bankman-Fried's conduct reveal systemic cultural issues within the Effective Altruism movement, including uncritical deference to high-status figures, ends-justifies-means reasoning, and insufficient ethical oversight. The author contends these problems go beyond individual bad actors and require structural reform within EA institutions.
A TIME investigation revealing that prominent figures in the Effective Altruism (EA) community received warnings about Sam Bankman-Fried's ethical conduct and risky behavior years before the collapse of FTX, yet failed to act. The piece examines how EA's close relationship with SBF and FTX funding created conflicts of interest and governance failures. It raises broader questions about EA's oversight mechanisms and the dangers of prioritizing financial ends over ethical means.
“Multiple EA leaders knew about the red flags surrounding Bankman-Fried by 2019, according to a TIME investigation based on contemporaneous documents and interviews with seven people familiar with the matter.”
The FTX Future Fund, backed by FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, announced plans to deploy approximately $1 billion toward AI safety research and reducing biological risks. The fund positioned itself as a major philanthropic actor in the existential risk reduction space, focusing on longtermist causes including technical AI safety work.
“FTX to deploy $1B through Future Fund for safer AI, reduced biorisk View all comments (0) 0 Global crypto exchange platform FTX launched a fund called the FTX Future Fund with an aim to support long-term improvements for humankind. The project will deploy up to a billion dollars to support projects focusing on safe artificial intelligence development, reducing biorisk dangers, effective altruism and more.”
The claim that the fund announced plans to distribute at least $100 million in 2022 is not supported by the source. The claim mentions 'institutional improvements' and 'related longtermist priorities' which are not explicitly mentioned in the source.
A reflection from the EA for Christians community on the FTX collapse and Sam Bankman-Fried's fraud, examining what it means for the effective altruism movement and how Christians within EA should process the ethical failures involved. The piece likely explores lessons about integrity, the dangers of consequentialist reasoning taken to extremes, and maintaining moral grounding.
“Along with FTX and Bankman-Fried’s wealth, billions of funding committed to EA causes is gone.”
Failed to parse LLM response
This post analyzes the FTX Future Fund's significance within EA funding, documenting that Open Philanthropy and GiveWell controlled ~80% of EA grants and projecting growth to $1B+ annually. It argues FTX Future Fund's planned $100M+ annual giving represented a major inflection point for longtermist causes, which had previously received only ~20% of Open Phil's budget. The piece captures a pivotal moment in EA funding dynamics before the subsequent FTX collapse.
“As you can see, longtermism (in red) is roughly 30% of all EA giving. But FTX Future Fund is about to drastically increase it even more.”
A Manifold Markets prediction market asking whether substantial evidence will emerge by end of 2025 showing that members of the FTX Future Fund team had strong suspicions of fraud before the collapse. This market reflects broader concerns about the integrity of EA-aligned funding and oversight of FTX-related organizations.
“Effective Ventures just published an update that includes a paragraph relevant to this question (note that Future Fund members MacAskill and Beckstead were trustees of EV): > Also related to FTX, in September we completed an independent investigation about the relationship between FTX and EV. The investigation, commissioned from the law firm Mintz, included dozens of interviews as well as reviews of tens of thousands of messages and documents. Mintz found no evidence that anyone at EV (including employees, leaders of EV-sponsored projects , and trustees ) was aware of the criminal fraud of which Sam Bankman-Fried has now been convicted.”
Wikipedia article on FTX Trading Ltd., the cryptocurrency exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried that collapsed in November 2022 following massive fraud. The collapse is notable in the AI safety context because SBF was a prominent EA/longtermist donor whose downfall significantly impacted AI safety funding and reputation.