The Charitable Foundation of the ex-manager of the large crypto exchange FTX, has earned at least $150 million from the sale of its own tokens of the FTT exchange, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Ruairi Donnelly started his career at FTX and Alameda Research in 2019 as Head of Human Resources. A week before the official launch of FTT, the exchange offered its employees the purchase of tokens at an insider price of $0.05 each. While for the rest, the initial price was $1, the newspaper writes.
Donelly traded $562,000 of his salary for 11.2 million tokens. Then he sent them as a donation to his charitable foundation Polaris Ventures, which is now a major lender to FTX.
Six months later, the cost of tokens has grown significantly. Polaris started selling them and made millions of dollars from it. Donnelly continued to work for FTX during this time. Donnelly’s lawyers say the tokens are no longer owned by the exchange. Lawyers insist they are part of the unpaid wages of a former top FTX executive.
According to the WSJ, Donelly’s fund has about $150 million in assets. Of these, $30 million are on frozen accounts of the FTX crypto exchange. Now Donnelly is trying to find a way to cash out the Polaris assets locked up on FTX.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has accused FTX founder Sam Benkman-Fried of using client funds to save Alameda Research’s trading arm as well as fund his own luxury lifestyle.
Benkman-Frid denies all eight charges against him, which include wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodity and securities fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering and campaign finance violations. The maximum penalty for five of the eight counts is 20 years in prison each.