Topline
Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX and a former billionaire, lost his appeal to overturn his conviction for fraud and 25-year sentence on Friday, as an appeals court rejected his claim the trial was unfair.
Key Facts
surprising fact
Bankman-Fried applied for a pardon from President Donald Trump earlier this week. Online records of the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney show that Bankman-Fried’s request for a “pardon after completion of sentence” is “pending.” In an interview with Fox Business from his prison cell earlier this week, Bankman-Fried said he “absolutely” wants a pardon, though he acknowledged it is “ultimately up to the president, not up to me.” Though Trump has pardoned multiple white-collar criminals in his second term, including online black market Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, he said in January he has no intention of pardoning Bankman-Fried.
forbes valuation
Bankman-Fried’s net worth is $0 following the collapse of FTX and his criminal convictions, according to Forbes estimates, but he was once worth as much as $26.5 billion before his company came crashing down.
key background
Bankman-Fried, once described by Forbes as the “multi-billionaire poster boy of crypto,” founded FTX in 2019 and became one of the richest people in the burgeoning cryptocurrency industry. At the height of his wealth, Bankman-Fried secured a Super Bowl ad for FTX that starred comedian Larry David, acquired the rights to rename the home of the Miami Heat to FTX Arena (which was removed following the company’s bankruptcy) and became a major political donor to Democratic candidates and causes, contributing the second-most of any individual to former President Joe Biden’s 2020 bid. But in November 2022, the company collapsed in a matter of days as a CoinDesk report found Alameda Research, a crypto company with close ties to FTX, had a significant number of FTX tokens on its balance sheet, while Forbes reported FTX and Alameda had been losing billions between 2021 and 2022. Investors pulled funds from FTX, including Binance, which backed out of a deal to buy FTX. Prosecutors later accused Bankman-Fried of “stealing over $8 billion of his customers’ money” and using those funds to “expand his own power and influence.”
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