Gabriel Bankman-Fried, the brother of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, had a plan to survive a global catastrophe using funds from the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange.
According to a July 20 filing with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, Gabriel planned to purchase the island nation of Nauru in the Pacific using allegedly misappropriated funds through the FTX Foundation. Projects with the charity “that served little purpose other than to enhance the public stature of Defendants,” according to court documents, included a $300,000 book grant on “humans’ utility function” as well as a $400,000 grant to a YouTuber.
However, one of Gabriel’s plans included preparing for a potential apocalypse by purchasing Nauru, an island northeast of Australia with a population of roughly 12,000 as of 2023. According to a memo between Gabriel and an unnamed officer of the FTX Foundation, he planned to establish a bunker to get through “some event where 50%-99.99% of people die [to] ensure that most EAs [effective altruists] survive” and build a lab focused on “human genetic enhancement.”
“Probably there are other things it’s useful to do with a sovereign country, too,” said the memo, referring to the planned acquisition.
Prior to FTX’s downfall in November 2022, Gabriel had founded Guarding Against Pandemics, a nonprofit organization aimed at preparing for the next COVID-19. He reportedly stepped down from his position as executive director of the organization amid the crypto exchange’s bankruptcy.
Sam Bankman-Fried’s first criminal trial in the U.S. has been scheduled for Oct. 2, where he faces charges including fraud related to the commingling of funds between FTX and Alameda Research. It’s unclear whether Gabriel will offer testimony against his brother, but debtors in the FTX bankruptcy case have considered subpoenaing him to provide information on any financial benefits he may have received from the exchange.
COVID-19 fraud and error cost the taxpayer nearly £11bn, a government watchdog has found.
Pandemic support programmes such as furlough, bounce-back loans, support grants and Eat Out to Help Out led to £10.9bn in fraud and error, COVID Counter-Fraud Commissioner Tom Hayhoe’s final report has concluded.
Lack of government data to target economic support made it “easy” for fraudsters to claim under more than one scheme and secure dual funding, the report said.
Weak accountability, bad quality data and poor contracting were identified as the primary causes of the loss.
The government has said the sum is enough to fund daily free school meals for the UK’s 2.7 million eligible children for eight years.
An earlier report from Mr Hayhoe for the Treasury in June found that failed personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts during the pandemic cost the British taxpayer £1.4 billion, with £762 million spent on unused protective equipment unlikely ever to be recovered.
Factors behind the lost money had included government over-ordering of PPE, and delays in checking it.
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Stablecoin issuer Circle has secured regulatory approval to operate as a financial service provider in the Abu Dhabi International Financial Center, deepening its push into the United Arab Emirates.
In an announcement Tuesday, Circle Internet Group said it received a Financial Services Permission license from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the International Financial Centre of Abu Dhabi. This allows the stablecoin issuer to operate as a Money Services Provider in the IFC.
The USDC (USDC) issuer also appointed Saeeda Jaffar as its managing director for Circle Middle East and Africa. The new executive also serves as a senior vice president and group country manager for the Gulf Operation Council at Visa and will be tasked with developing the stablecoin issuer’s regional strategy and partnerships.
Circle co-founder, chairman and CEO Jeremy Allaire said that the relevant regulatory framework “sets a high bar for transparency, risk management, and consumer protection,” adding that those standards are needed if “trusted stablecoins” are going to support payments and finance at scale.
The newly introduced Federal Decree Law No. 6 of 2025 brings DeFi platforms, related services and infrastructure providers under the scope of regulations if they enable payments, exchange, lending, custody, or investment services, with licenses now required. Local crypto lawyer Irina Heaver said that “DeFi projects can no longer avoid regulation by claiming they are just code.”
Crypto companies seeking a US federal bank charter should be treated no differently than other financial institutions, says Jonathan Gould, the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
Gould told a blockchain conference on Monday that some new charter applicants in the digital or fintech spaces could be seen as offering novel activities for a national trust bank, but noted “custody and safekeeping services have been happening electronically for decades.”
“There is simply no justification for considering digital assets differently,” he added. “Additionally, it is important that we do not confine banks, including current national trust banks, to the technologies or businesses of the past.”
The OCC regulates national banks and has previously seen crypto companies as a risk to the banking system. Only two crypto banks are OCC-licensed: Anchorage Digital, which has held a charter since 2021, and Erebor, which got a preliminary banking charter in October.
Crypto “should have” a way to supervision
Gould said that the banking system has the “capacity to evolve from the telegraph to the blockchain.”
He added that the OCC had received 14 applications to start a new bank so far this year, “including some from entities engaged in novel or digital asset activities,” which was nearly equal to the number of similar applications that the OCC received over the last four years.
Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould giving remarks at the 2025 Blockchain Association Policy Summit. Source: YouTube
“Chartering helps ensure that the banking system continues to keep pace with the evolution of finance and supports our modern economy,” he added. “That is why entities that engage in activities involving digital assets and other novel technologies should have a pathway to become federally supervised banks.”
Gould brushes off banks’ concerns
Gould noted that banks and financial trade groups had raised concerns about crypto companies getting banking charters and the OCC’s ability to oversee them.
“Such concerns risk reversing innovations that would better serve bank customers and support local economies,” he said. “The OCC has also had years of experience supervising a crypto-native national trust bank.”
Gould said the regulator was “hearing from existing national banks, on a near daily basis, about their own initiatives for exciting and innovative products and services.”
“All of this reinforces my confidence in the OCC’s ability to effectively supervise new entrants as well as new activities of existing banks in a fair and even-handed manner,” he added.