The Nauru ring road runs right across the island nation of Nauru.
(C) Hadi Zaher | Moment | Getty Images
Sam Bankman-Fried’s younger brother, who was a top lobbyist for failed crypto exchange FTX, considered purchasing the island nation of Nauru within the Pacific to create a fortified apocalypse bunker state, a lawsuit filed in Delaware bankruptcy court shows.
Gabe Bankman-Fried was looking to buy Nauru within the “event where 50%-99.99% of individuals die” to guard his philanthropic allies and create a genetically enhanced human species, in keeping with the suit filed Thursday by attorneys from Sullivan & Cromwell, which is in search of to get better billions of dollars following the collapse of FTX.
Bunker life is a well-documented fixation amongst tech billionaires, particularly those that discover as doomsday preppers. There’s also a fascination with buying large estates within the Pacific and even owning small islands there.
In his years running FTX, the elder Bankman-Fried brother touted a philanthropic lifestyle called effective altruism and established the philanthropic arm with that in mind. Devotees of effective altruism work to maximise their income in order that they can provide away their money in a fashion they see as most helpful to humankind.
Gabe Bankman-Fried was FTX’s most visible presence in Washington, D.C., and was connected to bipartisan charitable donations that bumped into the lots of of thousands and thousands. Together with an unnamed philanthropic officer of FTX, he considered buying Nauru, partially to foster “sensible regulation around human genetic enhancement, and construct a lab there.”
A representative for Nauru confirmed the island nation was not and has never been on the market.
Nauru, with a population of about 12,000, is a bit of over 2,100 miles away from Brisbane, Australia. It was there that FTX lawyers allege the Bankman-Fried team sought to ascertain an emergency base for itself and a select group of “EAs,” or effective altruists.
Along with serving as a haven in case of apocalypse, “probably there are other things it’s useful to do with a sovereign country, too,” in keeping with a memo between the younger Bankman-Fried and the philanthropic advisor, which was noted within the suit.
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