The collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy last week, has not only vaporized billions of dollars of customer deposits and prompted a federal investigation but also has dealt a significant blow to effective altruism, according to the New York Times.

FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is one of effective altruism’s leading proponents and donors, and nonprofits are scrambling to replace millions in grant commitments from his charitable vehicles, while members of the effective altruism community are asking themselves whether they might have helped burnish his reputation. On November 9, FTX was unable to meet the demand of customers trying to withdraw funds from the platform and owes an estimated $8 billion.

“Sam and FTX had a lot of good will—and some of that good will was the result of association with ideas I have spent my career promoting,” wrote William MacAskill, a founder of the effective altruism movement and one of five people who resigned from the FTX Future Fund on November 10, tweeted the next day. “If that good will laundered fraud, I am ashamed.” MacAskill also is the founder of the Center for Effective Altruism, which received a $13.9 million grant from the fund.

In an interview with the Times in October, Bankman-Fried said he planned to give away a vast majority of his fortune in the next 10 to 20 years to effective altruist causes. As of last month, the FTX Foundation said it had awarded $140 million, of which $90 million went through the FTX Future Fund. The Times reports that it is unclear how much had made it to the recipients and how much was earmarked for giving in installments over several years.

Through a nonprofit called Building a Stronger Future, Bankman-Fried also gave to groups such as news outlets ProPublica, Vox, and the Intercept. “While we don’t have information on the immediate future of Building a Stronger Future, it is clear that its scope and structure will need to change,” Avi Zenilman, a senior advisor to Building a Stronger Future, said in a statement. “However, the organizations and institutions it funded remain vitally important. We are hopeful that this work will continue in some way.”

Bankman-Fried’s reversal of fortune acted as a “distorted fun-house mirror of a lot of the problems with contemporary philanthropy,” Benjamin Soskis, senior research associate in the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute, told the Times. “They gain legitimation from their status as philanthropists, and there’s a huge amount of incentive to allow them to call the shots and gain prominence as long as the money is flowing.”

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