FTX plans to buy Nauru and build bunkers to prevent mass extinction

Current management called the past activities of FTX members “misleading” and “dystopian.”

According to corporate bankruptcy documents filed on July 20, FTX members are said to be planning to buy a small island nation in case of disaster.

The text of the case shows that an unidentified FTX official communicated with Gabriel Bankman-Fried (brother of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried) to discuss the possibility of buying the 8.1-square-mile microstate called Nauru and building bunkers there.

Specifically, a memo between the two described building a “bunker/shelter” in case of an event that would kill between 50% and 99.99% of the population. The purpose of the bunker was to ensure the survival of the most effective altruists - people like Sam Bankman Fried and Gabriel Bankman Fried were part of a social movement.

Nauru will also be used to build a laboratory and develop “reasonable regulation” for human genetic enhancement, according to the cited memo. “It is also useful to do other things with a sovereign nation,” the memo noted.

FTX wants ex-members to return funds

The aforementioned plan comes amid a broader effort by which FTX, now under new leadership, aims to recover funds from former company members.

FTX’s charity, the FTX Foundation, was supposed to be in charge of the Nauru project, so leaders took it as evidence of the foundation’s lack of legitimacy.

The current leadership has described the FTX Foundation’s plans as “often misguided and sometimes dystopian,” and has drawn attention to its other spending.

In particular, the FTX Foundation spent $300,000 on a book on the human utility function, a term used to describe how artificial intelligence systems align with human values. It gave a $400,000 grant to a YouTube channel that posts videos on topics including “greedy” aliens — that is, alien civilizations theoretically active enough to be discovered.

The filing also details other previously reported suspicious spending, including luxury apartment payments and political and charitable contributions. It also cited a self-rewarded bonus from Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, who is currently set to be a star witness in Sam Bankman-Fried’s pending criminal trial.

FTX’s new leadership claims that past members have “virtually unlimited power” to move fiat and cryptocurrencies, and says members put their own interests above those of the company, with leaders now seeking the return of funds, either directly or as damages.