Crypto exchange FTX to donate 1% of fee revenue to charities

Crypto exchange FTX announced Monday that it will donate 1% of net fee revenue to charities via the newly created The FTX Foundation.

Last year, FTX made $85 million in fee revenue, CEO Sam Bankman-Fried told The Block, adding that for 2021, the exchange expects to make $400 million. The projections are made based on FTX's December fee revenue of $200 million, said Bankman-Fried.

Within hours of the announcement, the total amount earmarked for charity has reached over $2,500.

FTX said its users will have a say in directing the foundation's funds. "For the time being, our plan is to use the same voting system that we use for letting users choose which tokenized stocks to list next," said FTX. "We'll start by offering a few options that we think are great, and we'll be listening for feedback on what's missing and what users would like to see."

FTX and the team are known to make large donations. To date, they have given away more than $10 million. Last year, FTX and affiliates donated around $7 million to Joe Biden's presidential campaign, Bankman-Fried told The Block.

Bankman-Fried's personal net worth is estimated to be around $10 billion, according to a recent report from New York Magazine's Intelligencer.