The Effective Altruism Movement Launched SBF's Empire: Complicit in Fraud
That origin story suggests that Bankman-Fried is a creation of the Effective Altruism movement and not, as has often been written, the other way around. The movement’s attempt to distance itself now from its golden boy are undermined by a clear look at their shared origins.
- The big money behind Alameda Research, the sister trading firm of crypto exchange FTX, came from two influential backers of the Effective Altruism movement: Luke Ding, a former currency trader turned philanthropist, and Jaan Tallinn, the co-founder of Skype, according to people familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by Semafor.
- Ding loaned Alameda $6 million in January 2018, according to people familiar with the matter. Tallinn, who sold Skype to eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion, loaned the firm $110 million worth of Ether, a cryptocurrency, according to documents and one of the people. The loans charged a sky-high interest rate of 43%.
- That origin story suggests that Bankman-Fried is a creation of the Effective Altruism movement and not, as has often been written, the other way around. The movement’s attempt to distance itself now from its golden boy are undermined by a clear look at their shared origins.
