FTX’s collapse casts a pall on a philanthropy movement

In short order, the extraordinary collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX has vaporised billions of dollars of customer deposits, prompted investigations by law enforcement, and destroyed the fortune and reputation of the company’s founder and CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried.

It has also dealt a significant blow to the corner of philanthropy known as effective altruism, a philosophy that advocates applying data and evidence to doing the most good for the many and that is deeply tied to Bankman-Fried, one of its leading proponents and donors. Now nonprofits are scrambling to replace millions in grant commitments from Bankman-Fried’s charitable vehicles, and members of the effective altruism community are asking themselves whether they might have helped burnish his reputation.