Gabriel Bankman-Fried, brother of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, had a plan to avoid a global catastrophe using funds from the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange.
According to a filing filed on July 20 in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, Gabriel planned to purchase the island nation of Nauru in the Pacific using funds allegedly misappropriated through the FTX Foundation. According to court documents, the charity’s projects “had no other purpose than to enhance the public stature of the defendants”, which included a $300,000 book grant on “human utility functions” as well as a $400,000 grant to a YouTuber.
However, one of Gabriel’s plans involved preparing for a possible apocalypse by 2023 by purchasing Nauru, an island northeast of Australia with a population of about 12,000. According to a memorandum between Gabriel and an unnamed official of the FTX Foundation, they planned to set up a bunker to avoid “an event where 50%–99.99% of the population dies”. [to] Make sure most E.A.S. [effective altruists] survive” and build a laboratory focused on “human genetic enhancement”.
“There are probably other things that are useful to do with a sovereign country,” the memo said, referring to the planned acquisition.
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Before the collapse of FTX in November 2022, Gabriel founded Guarding Against Pandemics, a non-profit organization that aims to prepare for the next COVID-19. He reportedly resigned as the organization’s executive director following the crypto exchange’s bankruptcy.
Sam Bankman-Fried’s first criminal trial in the US is set for October 2, where he faces multiple charges, including fraud, related to a funding nexus between FTX and Alameda Research. It is unclear whether Gabriel will testify against his brother, but debtors in the FTX bankruptcy case are considering subpoenaing him to provide information about any financial gains he received from the exchange.
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