Sam Bankman-Fried Files Pardon Request With Trump Administration
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has formally asked President Donald Trump for a pardon while serving a 25-year sentence for fraud and conspiracy. The request is listed as pending by the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, separate from his ongoing appeal.
What happened?
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has formally asked President Donald Trump for a pardon while serving a 25-year sentence for fraud and conspiracy. The request is listed as pending by the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, separate from his ongoing appeal.
Why it matters
The filing matters because Bankman-Fried remains one of the most prominent figures tied to crypto’s last major collapse, and any movement in his case is closely watched across the industry. FTX was once among the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges before its November 2022 failure, which followed concerns about the balance sheet of affiliated trading firm Alameda Research and exposed an $8 billion hole in FTX’s accounts.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of collapsed crypto exchange FTX, has formally applied for a presidential pardon from President Donald Trump. The clemency petition appeared Monday in records maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney and is listed as pending.
The filing matters because Bankman-Fried remains one of the most prominent figures tied to crypto’s last major collapse, and any movement in his case is closely watched across the industry. FTX was once among the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges before its November 2022 failure, which followed concerns about the balance sheet of affiliated trading firm Alameda Research and exposed an $8 billion hole in FTX’s accounts.
Bankman-Fried was convicted in 2023 on fraud and conspiracy charges connected to FTX’s downfall and is serving a 25-year prison sentence. The pardon application is moving through a separate process from his appeal of the conviction.
The former executive has recently signaled interest in clemency. In a FOX Business phone interview, he confirmed he would want a pardon, while acknowledging that the decision would ultimately rest with the president. CoinDesk reported that his parents, Stanford Law School professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, had previously contacted people in Trump’s circle to explore the possibility, though it remains unclear whether there were direct talks with White House officials.
The request comes after Trump has granted pardons to several high-profile crypto-linked figures, including Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao and the co-founders of BitMEX. Even so, clemency for Bankman-Fried is not assured: Trump said in a January interview with The New York Times that Bankman-Fried should not count on receiving a pardon.