Statement on Topos and the FTX Foundation
Topos is a community and an organisation that cares deeply about the public interest, and works to make a world of better systems for all. As part of this, we believe accountability and transparency are crucial. This post is to create transparency around our now declined funding relationship with the FTX Foundation.
Topos is a community and an organisation that cares deeply about the public interest, and works to make a world of better systems for all. As part of this, we believe accountability and transparency are crucial. This post is to create transparency around our now declined funding relationship with the FTX Foundation.
In January 2023, we will be hosting a research retreat entitled Finding the Right Abstractions for Healthy Systems. This is a sequel to our Finding the Right Abstractions: Category-theoretic Language for Human Flourishing virtual workshop, held in May 2021. The goal of the retreat is to bring together researchers for continued and new collaborations on concrete mathematical models of wholes made up of interacting parts. We are excited about this work, and will post more about the research and discussions at this workshop in the future.
In August, the FTX Foundation, through the FTX Future Fund Regranting Program, awarded us a grant of USD30,000 to help with the costs of this event. We understand that the FTX Foundation is fully funded by the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Last week, FTX collapsed, with allegations of severe financial mismanagement. As a result, many creditors to FTX have lost significant sums of money.
From what we understand, we believe the actions at FTX are not in line with the values of Topos Institute. We thus have initiated the process of declining the grant and returning the funds transferred in full. This is the only funding we have ever received from the FTX Foundation. As we have now declined this grant, we have removed the FTX Foundation logo from our page of supporters.
Our hearts go out to all those impacted by the collapse of FTX, and we hope that these returned funds can play a small role in restoring to those what is rightfully theirs.