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How has FTX’s collapse impacted EA?
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AnonymousEAForumAccount
Credibility Rating
3/5
Good(3)Good quality. Reputable source with community review or editorial standards, but less rigorous than peer-reviewed venues.
Rating inherited from publication venue: EA Forum
Relevant to AI safety funding landscape; FTX's collapse in late 2022 significantly disrupted EA and longtermist funding streams, affecting multiple AI safety organizations that had received or anticipated grants from FTX Future Fund.
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248
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65
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eaforum
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Building effective altruismCommunityCriticism of the effective altruism communityData on the EA communityFTX collapseResearch
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Importance: 45/100blog postanalysis
Summary
This EA Forum post examines the consequences of FTX's collapse on the Effective Altruism community, analyzing impacts on funding, reputation, and organizational trust. It likely surveys how the loss of a major donor and the associated scandal affected EA-aligned projects, including AI safety research funding.
Key Points
- •FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried were major funders of EA-aligned causes including AI safety, longtermism, and global health projects
- •The collapse created significant funding gaps for EA-affiliated organizations that had relied on FTX Future Fund grants
- •Reputational damage to EA as a movement raised questions about conflicts of interest and due diligence in donor vetting
- •The crisis prompted reflection on movement governance, financial dependence on single donors, and ethical standards
- •Some AI safety organizations had to restructure or reduce operations due to lost or clawed-back funding
Cited by 4 pages
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| EA Epistemic Failures in the FTX Era | -- | 84.0 |
| EA Institutions' Response to the FTX Collapse | -- | 53.0 |
| FTX Collapse and EA's Public Credibility | -- | 50.0 |
| FTX Collapse: Lessons for EA Funding Resilience | Concept | 78.0 |
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# How has FTX’s collapse impacted EA?
By AnonymousEAForumAccount
Published: 2023-10-17
**Summary of Findings**
===========================
It has been almost a year since FTX went bankrupt on November 11, 2022. Some of the ways that has impacted EA have been obvious, like the shuttering of the FTX Foundation, expected to be one of the biggest EA funders. But[ recent discussions](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/i7DWM6zhhPr2ccq35/thoughts-on-ea-post-ftx?commentId=pJMPeYWzpPYNrhbHT) show that the broader impact of the FTX scandal on EA isn’t well understood, and that there is[ a desire for more empirical evidence](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/i7DWM6zhhPr2ccq35/thoughts-on-ea-post-ftx?commentId=sPEKggZo3MLyEeboq) on this topic. To that end, I have aggregated a variety of publicly available EA metrics to improve the evidence base. Unfortunately, these **wide-ranging perspectives clearly show a broad-based and worrisome deterioration of EA activity in the aftermath of FTX.**
Previous attempts to quantify how FTX impacted EA have focused on surveys of members of the EA community, university students, the general public, and university group organizers. These surveys were conducted in the months following FTX’s collapse. Their results have been framed as relatively innocuous by the researchers who conducted the surveys and CEA leadership, as exemplified by how Ben West (interim Managing Director of CEA) introduced a [June forum post on this topic](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/SFAMvCxnEzaQHNeSL/how-has-ftx-s-collapse-affected-public-perception-of-ea):
> From the research we have on attitudes toward EA from the EA community, the general public, and university students, **it seems that the FTX crash hasn’t, overall, impacted sentiments toward EA very much. **This is not to say that FTX has not significantly impacted people in many ways, including mental and emotional health, levels of trust in EA leadership, and increased uncertainty in EA as a movement. (emphasis added)
Other community members interpreted the survey responses of the EA community in a much more negative light, particularly noting the large magnitudes of decreased satisfaction (“0.5-1 points on a 10-point scale … \[to\] ~7.5/10”) and the percentage of respondents (30%) saying “they had substantially lost trust in EA public figures or leadership”. This more negative interpretation seems well supported by my analysis of a much more comprehensive, and more up-to-date, set of metrics that measure the behaviors these attitudes motivate.
A clear inflection point is apparent across metrics after FTX collapsed, and subsequently **we can observe a persistent, ongoing, and meaningful negative impact on most publicly available EA metrics. These negative impacts are apparent throughout the EA “growth funnel”:**
* Top of the funnel: subscriptions to the EA Newsletter were increasing by ~290/month prior to FTX and are now contracting by ~150/month. Traffic t
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