The Intercept Begs Readers for Donations after Multimillion-Dollar Sam Bankman-Fried Grant ‘on Hold’
The Intercept begged its readers for donations after the publication revealed that a multimillion-dollar grant from disgraced former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried would be placed “on hold” due to FTX filing for bankruptcy.
Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange FTX plummeted from a $32 billion valuation to facing bankruptcy after his company was at the center of significant scandals in the cryptocurrency space last week.
As Breitbart News Economics Editor John Carney explained:
We’re still learning exactly what happened to FTX, but there are definite echoes from the financial crisis. On November 3, Coindesk reported that much of the $14.6 billion of assets of a fund called Alameda Research consisted of tokens created by FTX. These tokens are sort of like airline miles—a kind of currency generated by the company that is issued to its customers—except that they could be traded on crypto exchanges. Many found this disturbing because Alameda Research is also owned by FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who everyone calls SBF. This raised the possibility that the value of FTT, the FTX tokens, was being artificially propped up by Alameda’s dragon hoard of the tokens.
In addition to being a Democrat mega-donor, Bankman-Fried funneled millions of dollars to media outlets through one of his philanthropic entities, the Building a Stronger Future foundation.
So @SBF_FTX gave money to media outlets like Vox & The Intercept. He’s had glowing puff pieces in NYT, Fortune, Forbes, CNBC…
Writing big fat cheques to the Democrats buys a lot of glowing PR
https://t.co/uonYNjZnOK
— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) November 16, 2022
The Intercept is one of several media outlets that received a hefty donation from Bankman-Fried’s foundation.
Bankman-Fried pledged $4 million to The Intercept over two years. So far, the outlet has received $500,000 out of the $4 million to support their reporting “on biosafety and pandemic prevention.”
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However, The Intercept’s Acting Editor-in-Chief, Roger Hodge, announced on Friday that future grant payments are “on hold,” and used the announcement to ask readers for donations.
Hodge wrote:
Much remains unknown about the future of FTX and SBF’s philanthropic giving. We have been in touch with our colleagues at other nonprofit newsrooms that received support from the Building a Stronger Future Foundation, and we remain hopeful that other donors committed to this work will step forward.
But as of today, we have a significant hole in our budget. If you are able, please consider donating today to support The Intercept’s crusading independent journalism.
How many publications did SBF bribe? pic.twitter.com/nLDGr15XGo
— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) November 18, 2022