A former FTX executive allegedly made a profit for a charity by purchasing FTX tokens at a discount, FTT, before they were made available to the public at $0.05 per unit, according to a report citing anonymous sources. Ruairi Donnelly, the former chief of staff at FTX, has been accused of donating the tokens to Polaris Ventures, a Swiss-based charity, which later sold the FTT for millions of dollars.
Anonymous sources claim that Polaris Ventures got most of its wealth from FTT transfer in 2019
according to a report From the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Tuesday, a charity associated with an FTX executive benefited by getting FTX (FTT) tokens at a discounted price. The charity in question is Polaris Ventures, a Swiss organization that claims to support artificial intelligence (AI) and effective altruism, anonymous sources familiar with the matter told the WSJ.
A specific AI organization that Polaris Ventures supported it was the AI Cooperative Foundation, which received $15 million to support their cause and research. WSJ reporter Alexander Saeedy cites anonymous sources claiming that former FTX chief of staff Ruairi Donnelly bought FTX (FTT) tokens at a discount rate of $0.05 per unit, which was allegedly the current employee discount of FTX at the time.
Sources allege that Donnelly used $562,000 of his own salary to acquire FTT at this rate. Saeedy’s report suggests that Donnelly then donated the funds via a grant to Polaris, and that “the foundation made millions of dollars selling the tokens after they began publicly trading at $1 in 2019 and 2020, while Donnelly was still working on FTX”.
Donnelly’s attorney claimed that the FTT in question did not belong to FTX and was intended to pay his client’s unpaid wages. “To be absolutely clear, the FTT that Mr. Donnelly directed to be donated in his name to Polaris was not FTX funds,” the lawyer said. The lawyer also pointed out that $30 million of Polaris funds were tied up in FTX and that the foundation is one of the main creditors in the FTX bankruptcy case.
Anonymous sources cited in the report further suggest that most of the foundation’s wealth initially came from the FTT transfer in 2019. The same sources concluded that Donnelly is currently attempting to sell bankruptcy claims for a fraction of their value.
What do you think about the Polaris Ventures case and the FTT settlement reported in 2019? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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