Some comments on recent FTX-related events

# Some comments on recent FTX-related events
By Holden Karnofsky
Published: 2022-11-10
It appears that FTX, whose principals support the [FTX Foundation](https://ftxfuturefund.org/about/), is in [serious trouble](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTX_(company)#Liquidity_crunch_and_investigations). We’ve been getting a lot of questions related to these events.

_**Edited to add (Nov. 13):** based on continuing to follow coverage of this situation, I now think it’s very likely that FTX engaged in outrageous, unacceptable fraud. I am furious at the behavior of FTX leadership. I’m going to take some time to reflect on what this means for effective altruism and the effective altruist community. I’m not sure whether or when I will write up more detailed thoughts, so for now I will just point to a few statements by others whose general sentiments I resonate with:_

*   _Twitter threads by [Rob Wiblin](https://twitter.com/robertwiblin/status/1591099877546635269), [Dustin Moskovitz](https://twitter.com/moskov/status/1591592375553781760), and [Will MacAskill](https://twitter.com/willmacaskill/status/1591218014707671040)_
*   _Evan Hubinger’s excellent post, [We must be very clear: fraud in the service of effective altruism is unacceptable](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/XHrHsrQGyr4NnqCA7/we-must-be-very-clear-fraud-in-the-service-of-effective)_

I’ve made an attempt to get some basic points out quickly that might be helpful to people, but the situation appears to be developing quickly and I have little understanding of what’s going on, so this post will necessarily be incomplete and nonauthoritative.

One thing I’d like to say up front (more on how this relates to FTX below) is that Open Philanthropy remains committed to our longtermist [focus areas](https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/) and still expects to spend billions of dollars on them over the coming decades. We will raise the bar for our giving, and we don’t know how many existing projects that will affect, but we still expect longtermist projects to grow in terms of their impact and output.

**Are the funds directed by Open Philanthropy invested in or otherwise exposed to FTX or related entities?**

No.

**The FTX Foundation has quickly become a major funder of many longtermist and effective altruist organizations. If it stops (or greatly reduces) funding them, how might that affect Open Philanthropy’s funding practices?**

If the FTX Foundation stops (or greatly reduces) funding such people and organizations, then Open Philanthropy will have to consider a substantially larger set of funding opportunities than we were considering before.

In this case, we will have to **raise our bar** for longtermist grantmaking: with more funding opportunities that we’re choosing between, we’ll have to fund a lower percentage of them. This means grants that we would’ve made before might no longer be made, and/or we might want to provide smaller amounts of money to projects we previously would have supp

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