A historic manor house has been sold by a cryptocurrency-backed charity as part of its plan to “wind down” in the coming years, according to the organisation’s accounts.
Grade I-listed Wytham Abbey in Oxfordshire was purchased by the Effective Ventures Foundation (EV UK) in April 2022, with £17m in non-crypto support from Coefficient Giving, formerly known as Open Philanthropy.
The property was used by the charity as an educational events venue, but the sale was prompted by the charity’s backers withdrawing their support for the property to be used for this purpose.
At the time, the charity said that it had made the decision as the project “did not meet the funding bar of our major funders, and the board has decided to sell the Wytham estate”.
The charity, formerly known as the Centre for Effective Altruism, sold the property to an unnamed buyer for a discounted price of £5.95m, its recently published accounts confirm.
Charity closure delayed
In November 2023, the charity announced in its accounts that “the charitable purposes for which the charity was set up would be best served by spinning out all of the projects which were fiscally sponsored by EV UK, into new independent entities”.
It added that therefore its board “does not intend to fiscally sponsor new charitable projects, once the existing projects have spun out. It is therefore expected that EV UK will eventually wind down (in 2025 or beyond).”
In the charity’s most recently filed accounts, its board of trustees said that “significant progress” had been made towards this goal, but that “the exact timeline for completing this process is uncertain but is currently expected to be completed in the coming year”, with the winding down process now expected to be completed “in 2026 or beyond”.
In the year to June 2025, the charity recorded an income of £12.1m, down from £31.7m the year before, and an expenditure of £37.5m, up from £35.3m in 2023-24.
EV UK was previously investigated by the Charity Commission after one of its funders, cryptocurrency exchange operator FTX Trading Ltd, filed for bankruptcy in November 2022.
FTX’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, was later sentenced to 25 years in prison in March 2024.
The investigation was concluded in May 2024, with the regulator noting that “whilst the inquiry highlighted weaknesses within the charity and its governance the trustees sought to put these things right at the earliest opportunity.”
It added that “the trustees sought to act in the charity’s best interests and had sought independent legal advice in order to support their decisions throughout the inquiry”.
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