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The Block, a crypto media site, and its chief executive officer, Michael McCaffrey, were revealed to have received funds from Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research crypto trading company. However, the funding was said to have been done in secret.
As per CoinDesk, The Block and its CEO were funded by Alameda Research over the last two years without anyone knowing. The crypto media said that McCaffrey was given three loans by Alameda Research, and from 2021 up to this year, the total amount of the loans reached $43 million.
It was revealed that the first loan was issued in 2021, which was $12 million. The fund was to buy out other investors in the media company, and McCaffrey was just assigned the role of a chief executive at that time.
The second loan was made in January this year, and it was worth $15 million. It was said that this was used to fund day-to-day operations, while the third and last loan was worth $16 million, and it was reportedly used for the purchase of McCaffrey’s personal real estate in the Bahamas. These details were confirmed and came directly from The Block.
As a result of the unexpected disclosure of the loans from Alameda Research, McCaffrey immediately submitted his resignation. He will also vacate his seat on The Block’s board.
The company reiterated that except for its CEO, no one had any knowledge of the loans; thus, they were also surprised by it. As McCaffrey leaves The Block, Bobby Moran, the company’s current chief revenue officer, will take over the CEO role with immediate effect.
“No one at The Block had any knowledge of this financial arrangement besides Mike,” Moran stated regarding the secret funding from Alameda. “From our own experience, we have seen no evidence that Mike ever sought to improperly influence the newsroom or research teams, particularly in their coverage of SBF, FTX, and Alameda Research.”
Meanwhile, the outgoing CEO explained via social media that he did not tell anyone in the company about the loans because he did not want knowledge of the loan to be viewed as compromising the objectivity of the coverage of Bankman-Fried and his companies. He further said that he never tried to influence coverage of FTX, Alameda, or Sam Bankman-Fried.
Photo by: Petre Barlea/Pixabay
