FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years for crypto fraud

• FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the massive fraud and conspiracy that doomed his cryptocurrency exchange and a related hedge fund.
• The sentence in Manhattan federal court was significantly less than the 40 to 50 years in prison that federal prosecutors wanted for Bankman-Fried.
• Bankman-Fried said he made “selfish decisions” that haunt him “every day.”

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday for the massive fraud and conspiracy that doomed his cryptocurrency exchange and a related hedge fund.

The sentence in Manhattan federal court was significantly less than the 40 to 50 years in prison that federal prosecutors wanted for Bankman-Fried, and much more than the five to six-and-a-half years that his lawyers had suggested.

“They built something really beautiful and I threw all of that away,” Bankman-Fried, 32, said of his co-workers at FTX. “It haunts me every day.”

“It’s been excruciating to watch this all unfold,” he told Judge Lewis Kaplan. “Customers don’t deserve this level of pain.

“I was the CEO of FTX and I was responsible.”

Indicted FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried leaves the U.S. Courthouse in New York City, July 26, 2023.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, in a statement after the sentencing, said, “Samuel Bankman-Fried orchestrated one of the largest financial frauds in history, stealing over $8 billion of his customers’ money.”

“His deliberate and ongoing lies demonstrated a brazen disregard for his customers’ expectations and disrespect for the rule of law, all so that he could secretly use his customers’ money to expand his own power and influence,” Williams said.

The top prosecutor said that the sentence not only will prevent Bankman-Fried from committing fraud again, but also is “an important message to others who might be tempted to engage in financial crimes that justice will be swift, and the consequences will be severe.”

Before he sentenced SBF, Kaplan said he rejected “the entirety of defendant’s argument there was no loss” at FTX, calling that claim “misleading, logically flawed and speculative.”

After Kaplan ruled on the guideline enhancement, several victims of Bankman-Fried talked about the damage to their lives from his crimes.

Bankman-Fried, who was wearing a beige jailhouse jumpsuit, looked at the victims as they talked to the judge.

A jury in November convicted Bankman-Fried of seven counts and held him responsible for the roughly $10 billion of customer deposits that went missing in 2022.

FTX’s former CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s mother, Barbara Fried (L), and his father, Joseph Bankman, arrive at Manhattan Federal Court for his sentencing at Manhattan Federal Court in New York City on March 28, 2024.

The charges included wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud against FTX customers and against lenders to sister hedge fund Alameda Research; conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit commodities fraud against FTX investors; and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Bankman-Fried’s parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, are in the courtroom for the sentencing hearing.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams has said Bankman-Fried was the mastermind of “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.”

Jurors reached their verdict after only about three hours of deliberations. For a high-profile monthlong trial that involved nearly 20 witnesses and hundreds of exhibits, experts told CNBC they’d never seen such a speedy decision.

Bankman-Fried plans to appeal his conviction and sentence.

It was a steep and swift fall from grace for Bankman-Fried, who was once hailed as a titan in the industry and grew his crypto empire — on paper — to a $32 billion valuation.

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