In the AI world, there are two "Effective Altruism Sams", one in the spotlight enjoying the industry, and one in prison missed gains unicorn.

Forced to "missed gains" by hundreds of times, SBF foresaw the future but lost the present.

Written by: Penny

In the crypto world, SBF has always played the role of a contradiction - he is not only a philanthropist who considers himself an evangelist of "effective altruism", but also a capital trader who is well versed in market games; It not only claims to protect the future of mankind through technology investment, but also drags millions of investors into the abyss due to uncontrolled systemic risks. Similarly, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is also an "effective altruist", and he has repeatedly publicly emphasized that "the development of AGI must be promoted while ensuring safety and benefit", trying to overcome the barriers to AI development through technology, policy, and social solutions. Two years after the collapse of the FTX empire, when we re-examined its investment map of "technology for the benefit of mankind", we found that those previously ununderstood advanced layouts gradually revealed amazing foresight in the evolution of technology; The tens of billions of assets that were forced to be liquidated have now doubled in value, which has become a shameful pity.

The "OG" of effective altruism is destined to invest in AI unicorns.

SBF has repeatedly emphasized in public interviews that his philosophy of action is based on "effective altruism," which was instilled in him by his parents from a young age—a belief in extreme altruism aimed at bringing happiness to more people. He advocates for maximizing the accumulation of funds to support future social welfare, such as grand goals like preventing epidemics and reducing global poverty.

Since 2014, SBF has been a member of the effective altruism movement, always emphasizing "earning to give" as a life career. In April 2022, during an interview with The New York Times, he stated that he would strive to choose a high-paying profession so that he could donate more charitable funds in the future.

SBF's focus on disruptive technological fields aligns closely with the "long-termism" of effective altruism. He believes that AI is at the core of future technological transformation and could achieve long-term societal value by enhancing efficiency or addressing significant issues (such as healthcare, climate, etc.). For example, he once planned to use funds to support the research and development of technologies to prevent future pandemics, and the application of AI in the biomedicine field (such as protein folding research) is related to this.

In February 2022, SBF and several colleagues from FTX announced the establishment of the "Future Fund," aimed at funding "ambitious projects that aim to improve humanity's long-term prospects." The fund is co-led by one of the founders of the Effective Altruism Center, Associate Professor Will MacAskill, along with other key figures in the movement. The Future Fund had committed to providing a total of $160 million in funding to various projects by early September, including support for research projects related to pandemic preparedness and economic growth. Approximately $30 million was allocated to various organizations and individuals exploring AI-related topics.

SBF and his colleagues also funded several other projects aimed at reducing long-term risks associated with artificial intelligence, including a grant of $1.25 million to the Alignment Research Centre. This organization aims to ensure that future artificial intelligence systems align with human interests and prevent technology from "going out of control." They also provided $1.5 million to Cornell University for similar research.

The fund has also provided nearly $6 million in grants to three projects related to large language models. Large language models are a class of increasingly powerful artificial intelligence that can write tweets, emails, and blog posts, and even generate computer programs. The grant aims to reduce the risk of such technologies being used to spread misinformation and to mitigate the likelihood of unintended and harmful behaviors.

In addition to funding from future funds, SBF and his colleagues also directly invested in several startups, such as injecting $500 million into Anthropic. Founded in 2021 by a group of effective altruists who left OpenAI, Anthropic is dedicated to enhancing the safety of artificial intelligence by developing its own language models, which can cost tens of millions of dollars to create.

Between 2021 and 2022, SBF and his FTX colleagues invested over $530 million in more than 70 AI-related companies, academic laboratories, think tanks, independent projects, and individual researchers through grants or investments to address people's concerns about the technology.

Besides Solana, SBF could have created another "Sui Miracle".

In 2021, at the time of the large-scale unlock of SOL, SBF made a classic statement: I would now buy all the SOL you have at a price of 3 dollars.

SBF's investment in Solana is based on its technological advantages. Solana is regarded as a competitor to Ethereum, with higher transaction speeds and lower fees. In an interview in September 2021, SBF stated that Solana is "one of the few blockchains with long-term development potential" and capable of supporting industrial-grade applications. FTX has a close relationship with Solana, and SBF personally holds a large amount of SOL, demonstrating his confidence in it.

Sui is a public blockchain founded by Evan Cheng, a former core member of Meta (Facebook) Libra, continuing Libra's high-performance design philosophy, focusing on high performance and scalability. FTX Ventures invested in Sui's predecessor, Mysten Labs, in 2021, acquiring subscription rights and equity for 890 million Sui tokens, with a total value of approximately 100 million dollars ( Sui Blockchain Explained: How It Works and What You Need to Know ). SBF may have invested due to Sui's technological advantages (high throughput, low latency) and team background, similar to Solana.

Sui was launched on the mainnet in May 2023, and as of May 7, 2025, its market value exceeded $11.5 billion, ranking it among the top 20 cryptocurrencies globally. Its technical features include high performance (processing tens of thousands of transactions per second), low fees, and support for dynamic assets and complex smart contracts using the Move programming language, making it a representative of high-performance public chains. Its TVL (Total Value Locked) reached $1.78 billion in 2025, surpassing older public chains like Avalanche. Due to the core members of its founding team being Chinese, it has also attracted a large number of Chinese developers, whose development efficiency is significantly higher than that of European and American teams. The Sui ecosystem is developing rapidly in the DeFi and gaming sectors.

Sui is regarded as a potential leader of the next generation of public chains, with a team background (core members from Meta Libra) that lends it authority. Support from investment institutions such as a16z, FTX Ventures, and Coinbase Ventures further enhances its industry status. Sui has a total supply of 10 billion tokens and a circulating market value of approximately 11.5 billion USD, demonstrating the market's confidence in its future.

Forced to "missed gains" by hundreds of times, is it the heavens being jealous of talent or just a naive design?

At the beginning of 2025, FTX creditor Sunil Kavuri posted on X, pointing out that SUI reached a market value of $16 billion at $5.20, meaning that the 890 million SUI tokens sold by FTX for $96 million in March 2023 are now worth $4.6 billion. As of now, although the price of SUI tokens has dropped to $3.4, they are still worth $3 billion.

FTX sold its shares back to Sui network developer Mysten Labs in 2023, a few months after filing for bankruptcy. FTX Ventures had previously acquired these shares, which included equity in Mysten Labs and the right to purchase SUI tokens after investing $101 million in Mysten Labs' $300 million Series B funding round in 2022. This means that FTX Ventures sold these shares at a loss.

Sunil Kavuri's post makes people reassess SBF's investment vision. Looking back, the initial leading investments of FTX had a vision that transcended the era, but due to the bankruptcy liquidation of FTX, they had to sell at a low price. Now, the missed gains from individual assets amount to billions.

In March 2024, FTX sold approximately two-thirds of its stake in the artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, which accounted for 8% of the total equity. The total amount of this sale reached $884 million, with the Emirati sovereign wealth fund Mubadala's subsidiary ATIC set to purchase nearly $500 million of the Anthropic shares held by FTX. Currently, this stake is valued at around $3 billion.

In April 2024, FTX sold up to 30 million SOL at a significant discount price of $64, with a total value of approximately $1.9 billion, accounting for two-thirds of its total holdings of SOL. This move attracted the attention of industry giants such as Galaxy Trading and Pantera Capital. According to Bloomberg, Galaxy Trading specifically created a fund worth $620 million to acquire FTX's discounted SOL. Based on the current price of SOL at $148, this portion of assets is currently valued at approximately $4.4 billion.

On May 6, 2025, according to the Financial Times, Anysphere, the company behind the AI code editor Cursor, completed a $900 million funding round led by Thrive Capital, reaching a valuation of $9 billion. FTX was an early investor in Cursor, but after bankruptcy liquidation, its liquidation team sold the Cursor shares it held for $200,000, while those shares have now skyrocketed in value to about $500 million...

During the FTX liquidation, over $14 billion in assets were recovered, including cash, digital assets, and investments. However, the specific assets sold and their selling prices at the time have not been disclosed. Looking back now, the missed gains are likely to be in the tens of billions of dollars.

SBF's dramatic ups and downs reflect the fervor and fragility of the cryptocurrency industry. From betting on high-performance public chains to laying out plans in the AI space, his decisions have always revolved around the grand narrative of "effective altruism," but ultimately fell into the abyss due to a lack of risk control and moral ambiguity. Looking through SBF's forward-thinking investment vision, this round Sui may shine brightly like the previous round's Solana, showcasing the industry's eternal pursuit of technological iteration and wealth effects. The wheels of industry iteration are constantly rolling forward, and in the future, more emerging fields will emerge. How to find quality targets among a plethora of new products remains an eternal topic for investors.