Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has formally applied for a presidential pardon from US President Donald Trump while serving a 25-year prison sentence for fraud and conspiracy.
According to the US Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, Bankman-Fried’s clemency request has been received and is currently listed as “pending.”
However, Trump indicated earlier this year that he was unlikely to grant such a request. In an interview with The New York Times in January, the president said he had no plans to pardon the 34-year-old former crypto executive.
Widely known as SBF, Bankman-Fried rose to prominence in the cryptocurrency industry after co-founding FTX in 2019. Before turning 30, he had amassed a multibillion-dollar fortune as FTX grew into the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange.
His rapid success unraveled in November 2022 when FTX collapsed amid a wave of customer withdrawals and allegations that billions of dollars in customer funds had been improperly transferred to Alameda Research, his affiliated hedge fund.
In November 2023, a federal jury in New York found Bankman-Fried guilty on seven counts, including fraud, embezzlement and criminal conspiracy. He was subsequently sentenced to 25 years in prison and has since appealed both his conviction and sentence.
