A UK charity has filed a serious incident report with the Charity Commission after one of its backers went bankrupt last month.
The Charity Commission told CNBC that Effective Ventures Foundation filed the report related to “the collapse of FTX”, a US cryptocurrency exchange whose philanthropic arm, FTX Foundation, had funded the UK charity in the past.
A spokesperson for the Charity Commission said: “We can confirm that in line with our guidance, Effective Ventures Foundation (of which the Centre for Effective Altruism is a project) has filed a serious incident report relating to the collapse of FTX”, adding that the commission has been in touch with the charity.
FTX was declared bankrupt last month and its chief executive, Sam Bankman-Fried, was placed under investigation after transferring billions in customer funds from the crypto trading platform he founded in 2019 to Alameda Research, a crypto trading firm he founded in 2017.
An Effective Ventures Foundation spokesperson told CNBC: “Effective Ventures has in the past received grants from Alameda Research and FTX/Alameda employees. We also received donations from FTX Future Fund and related individuals and organisations.”
Following the bankruptcy announcement, the entire staff of the FTX Future Fund resigned.
In an open letter shared on Twitter by US journalist Teddy Schleifer, the FTX Future Fund team said they were “devastated that it looks like there are many committed grants that the Future Fund will be unable to honour”, but that they were concerned about “the legitimacy and integrity of the business operations that were funding the FTX Foundation and the Future Fund”.
William MacAskill, co-founder and president of the Centre for Effective Altruism, was among the signatories.
Third Sector has contacted Effective Ventures Foundation for comment.