He will hold a Cabinet-level position before 2029.
ourmandave 44 minutes ago [-]
Trump already chose the Binance money-launderer Zhao which was a competitor of FTX.
But the administration loves frauds, so maybe if Bankman can come up with a bribe.
ben4next 37 minutes ago [-]
Sammy is left winger who thought it was ok to do wrong then make up for it at the end by then pursuing false ideologies. No chance of parden. Too bad he wasn't Biden's son.
dyauspitr 35 minutes ago [-]
Crime is only okay if you’re on the right. It’s like in India, politicians with criminal backgrounds switch parties to the right. It’s called the washing machine.
momoschili 35 minutes ago [-]
he ain't a left winger. right winger cosplaying
ben4next 32 minutes ago [-]
"Sam Bankman-Fried was one of the largest financial supporters of the Democratic Party and left-wing campaigns. He publicly cultivated a center-left persona and aligned his philanthropic efforts with progressive ideologies."
Scam Bankman-Fraud is just one of the few highly publicised cases they will use to pretend they are actually serious about tackling these issues. Wake me when someone gets prosecuted for front-running Axios' "Iran deal is imminent" articles in the oil market.
GolfPopper 46 minutes ago [-]
He committed the one crime you can't buy your way out of: scamming the ruling finance class.
Hasn't succeeded yet, probably because he doesn't have the money, also too publicly associated with the Democratic Party. I wouldn't be shocked if Trump does it in the end because his empathy seems to be reserved for high-profile scammers.
vessenes 2 hours ago [-]
Trump reportedly was disinterested in SBF money. During his tenure, SBF leaned left - with Clinton and others as paid speakers for events.
SoftTalker 44 minutes ago [-]
Trump himself supported Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2008.
kelnos 40 minutes ago [-]
Not sure how that's relevant. Trump does whatever Trump thinks is good for Trump. I'm sure his support of Clinton back then made sense to him, as did shifting far right several years later.
If he thinks accepting money from SBF will be good for him, he'll do it. If not, he won't. I suspect SBF is going to be left out in the cold, though, so Trump can say he's tough on white-collar crime, while pardoning the Binance guy and so many other rich fraudsters.
SoftTalker 25 minutes ago [-]
I was responding to the implication that SBF's association with the Clintons was a reason he would not get any favors from Trump. Trump has had a lot of associates on the D side of the ballot over the years, pretty much unavoidable if you're a wheeler-dealer in New York.
matwood 2 hours ago [-]
Yeah, it's odd he can't scrape together a couple million and just get a pardon. It seems like the people who were able to pick up FTX claims for .50-.60 on the dollar, and have now made a killing, would toss Sam a tip.
dylan604 2 hours ago [-]
Why would they? What would be the return for them?
porkchoppers 40 minutes ago [-]
On the same basis as phishing emails having spelling mistakes a smart pyramid scheme would hire him as a mascot to keep the idiots buying and the critical analysis hard to separate from jokes.
tdb7893 2 hours ago [-]
He was a top Democrat donor (the article says he was their number 2 individual donor in 2022) so I doubt he could buy one. Not that he seemed particularly left leaning himself and he also donated to Republicans but 5.2 million publicly to Biden seems like a dealbreaker.
Small criminals rot in jails but big ones like founder of silk road get out paying the government. This is shows how rotten american government is
voganmother42 2 hours ago [-]
I think the tiered justice system sucks, but this is no small criminal
CryptoBanker 3 hours ago [-]
Good
neonstatic 3 hours ago [-]
Good night, sweet prince
NickC25 3 hours ago [-]
How utterly predictable.
juliusceasar 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
3327 2 hours ago [-]
[dead]
Lerc 3 hours ago [-]
>In appealing against the conviction, Bankman-Fried’s defense lawyers argued that US district judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw the trial, improperly prevented Bankman-Fried from introducing evidence to back up his belief that FTX had enough funds to cover customer withdrawals.
So it's been a few years now. Did people get their money in the end? That would presumably answer the question of whether they were stolen from. It wouldn't affect any decisions on crimes related to flouting regulations.
benzible 2 hours ago [-]
That is not how any of this works. He was convicted of fraud, and fraud was committed the moment he transferred the funds to Alameda. That he placed some bets that worked out, like his Anthropic investment, doesn't negate the crime any more than if I robbed a bank, placed a winning bet with it and returned the funds with interest.
Lerc 1 hours ago [-]
I'm saying a Fraud conviction is not the same a stealing. I'm completely ok with a conviction for fraud, provided that the conviction and sentencing is based upon that fraud.
I would characterise robbing a bank, placing a bet and returning the funds as theft.
However if you entrusted me with $500 and I gambled and paid you back when you wanted the $500, I would not say that is theft. If I had promised not to gamble, then it would have been fraudulent.
davyAdewoyin 27 minutes ago [-]
Except SBF didn't gamble away the money (still a criminal offence if he did); he spent it on lavish goods and apartments, with a lot of political donations. The very definition of fraud is deception, misappropriation, and loss to the users, all of which did happen.
In between placing a bet and returning the funds, the customer's funds were totally non-existent hence the loss to the user. That things later worked out after some years does not take away the misappropriation and that there was no actual money where it was meant to be at that moment, hence a fraud.
CPLX 36 minutes ago [-]
You can characterize things however you want. But "theft" and "fraud" are extensively defined concepts in caselaw. Fraud, specifically, is legally defined quite differently than what most people think the word means in common usage and your example here does not have much relationship to it.
Lerc 13 minutes ago [-]
Well I have only seen media reports alleging theft, such as the article linked, they don't necessarily have to conform to legal definitions. A cynical person might suggest that perhaps media coverage deliberately chooses between colloquial, legal, and scientific definitions at will depending on the narrative they would like to create.
Was there ever a charge of theft in the legal sense filed in court?
root-parent 1 hours ago [-]
Proof you can graduate from MIT and still be completely dumb.
nullc 1 hours ago [-]
It's hardly even that-- he dumped the remaining customer assets to briefly crash the price of Bitcoin... causing an understatement in what he took from people.
tsunamifury 2 hours ago [-]
Except when you pay someone to manage your money.
Remember this.
gcheong 1 hours ago [-]
Clarify? I don't understand how whether or not I pay someone to manage my money makes a difference as to whether what they did was commit fraud. People paid Bernie Madoff to manage their money and early investors got promised returns but he still went to jail because he was running an illegal ponzi scheme.
tsunamifury 1 hours ago [-]
They have far greater latitude to move it and do what they deem smartest with it. And take fees for themselves. And put you in deals that benefits other clients they prefer.
And on and on. And on.
Dumping, swapping, bag holding, fee based investments that are crap. All legal.
sbstp 2 hours ago [-]
I think Kraken has been selected to redistribute the funds, but not sure if it has happened yet. These things take time, I think Mt. Gox took like a decade to be distributed
dkersten 47 minutes ago [-]
They did, I had something like $50 in FTX and I got it back. I don’t remember when, I think it was about a year ago.
Analemma_ 2 hours ago [-]
You SBF defenders have such a weird view of how the law works. If I embezzle money from my company and then bet it all on black in Vegas, intending to give it back if I win, your implication here is equivalent to saying I did commit a crime if the wheel comes up red, but I did not commit any crime if it comes up black.
Lerc 1 hours ago [-]
Not a SBF defender, and at no point am I suggesting that a crime was not committed. I am saying that the crime is different to theft.
Would you say that a misuse of funds with zero chance of the rightful owner losing their money is a less serious crime than a misuse of funds with a 50% or 100% chance of losing their money.
I think it is, and penalties should be proportionate. That is a principle that I hold independent to any of the specifics of this case.
kelnos 37 minutes ago [-]
> Would you say that a misuse of funds with zero chance of the rightful owner losing their money is a less serious crime than a misuse of funds with a 50% or 100% chance of losing their money.
No, because the crime is the same either way. The crime is "misuse of funds", full stop.
If recklessly using those funds is also a crime, then there should be an extra charge tacked on, which would presumably increase penalties on conviction.
SoftTalker 29 minutes ago [-]
Agreed. I've seen local officials convicted of misusing an offical credit card for groceries and other personal purchases, even though they paid everything back and there was no "loss" to the taxpayers. But they were still misusing public credit for personal benefit.
Of course it was a pretty clear pattern of usage over time, not a one-time thing that could be explained as accidental.
SoftTalker 32 minutes ago [-]
Paying back a victim, or "making them whole" is part of required restitution, but it's not adequate as a deterrence. If all I have to do is pay back my victims, there's very little disincentive to keep trying my schemes until I "win."
Loss of freedom is ultimately what will reform a criminal, if reform is possible.
FireBeyond 1 hours ago [-]
I would disagree, solely because one or more of the following reasons:
1. the person taking the money had no guarantee that the money, or some of it, would not be lost.
2. it wasn't their intention to give all or some of it back to its rightful owners.
3. the fact that some of it could repay some of the rightful owner's was often a matter of luck, not intent (there is some overlap between 1 and 3).
SBF hits all three of these. Your intent matters. At some point SBF intended by conscious acts to run and continue running a Ponzi scheme. He wasn't trying to bail himself out of the hole other than to the extent required to keep the Ponzi scheme going and enrich himself in the process.
So, respectfully, I disagree. May there be other cases that I agree with you on, depending on the particulars? Perhaps so. But not this one.
CPLX 30 minutes ago [-]
Intent isn't necessarily an element required to prove fraud. Recklessness can be sufficient. Also to the extent intent is required intent to deceive is sufficient, ie the intent to cause someone to rely on a false statement, even if there's no intent to harm because you're convinced your fraudulent scheme will ultimately lead to success.
JumpinJack_Cash 56 minutes ago [-]
This is how people who get to the top act, the ones you see at the top are the ones who correctly guessed the roulette number .
If you want to become successful sooner or later you'd have to do the same .
As I realized this I am slowly but steadily abandoning the race for money and I am trying to approach it by finding the best deals for the stuff that I like as money saved is money earned and there is very little difference between experiencing a top 85 percentile thing and a top 99.999 percentile thing , but that last 15% man that is what the money exonential really goes crazy
xhkkffbf 2 hours ago [-]
I think the victims were helped quite a bit by the runup in crypto assets. So even though some was lost, the run up in what was left ended up being quite a bit.
Lerc 1 hours ago [-]
Yeah that happened with MtGox too. I don't think that aspect should be factored in as a defence. It should be more down to the degree of risk that people were exposed to at the time the offence occurred.
Rendered at 17:06:59 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
But the administration loves frauds, so maybe if Bankman can come up with a bribe.
Src: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/geor...
[1]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/05/04/donald-trumps-...
[2]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/05/04/donald-trumps-...
[3]: https://apnews.com/article/nikola-trevor-milton-fraud-trump-...
[4]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7e0jve875o
[5]: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/28/trump-pardon-bitmex-crypto-e...
Hasn't succeeded yet, probably because he doesn't have the money, also too publicly associated with the Democratic Party. I wouldn't be shocked if Trump does it in the end because his empathy seems to be reserved for high-profile scammers.
If he thinks accepting money from SBF will be good for him, he'll do it. If not, he won't. I suspect SBF is going to be left out in the cold, though, so Trump can say he's tough on white-collar crime, while pardoning the Binance guy and so many other rich fraudsters.
https://time.com/6241262/sam-bankman-fried-political-donatio...
So it's been a few years now. Did people get their money in the end? That would presumably answer the question of whether they were stolen from. It wouldn't affect any decisions on crimes related to flouting regulations.
I would characterise robbing a bank, placing a bet and returning the funds as theft.
However if you entrusted me with $500 and I gambled and paid you back when you wanted the $500, I would not say that is theft. If I had promised not to gamble, then it would have been fraudulent.
In between placing a bet and returning the funds, the customer's funds were totally non-existent hence the loss to the user. That things later worked out after some years does not take away the misappropriation and that there was no actual money where it was meant to be at that moment, hence a fraud.
Was there ever a charge of theft in the legal sense filed in court?
Remember this.
And on and on. And on.
Dumping, swapping, bag holding, fee based investments that are crap. All legal.
Would you say that a misuse of funds with zero chance of the rightful owner losing their money is a less serious crime than a misuse of funds with a 50% or 100% chance of losing their money.
I think it is, and penalties should be proportionate. That is a principle that I hold independent to any of the specifics of this case.
No, because the crime is the same either way. The crime is "misuse of funds", full stop.
If recklessly using those funds is also a crime, then there should be an extra charge tacked on, which would presumably increase penalties on conviction.
Of course it was a pretty clear pattern of usage over time, not a one-time thing that could be explained as accidental.
Loss of freedom is ultimately what will reform a criminal, if reform is possible.
1. the person taking the money had no guarantee that the money, or some of it, would not be lost.
2. it wasn't their intention to give all or some of it back to its rightful owners.
3. the fact that some of it could repay some of the rightful owner's was often a matter of luck, not intent (there is some overlap between 1 and 3).
SBF hits all three of these. Your intent matters. At some point SBF intended by conscious acts to run and continue running a Ponzi scheme. He wasn't trying to bail himself out of the hole other than to the extent required to keep the Ponzi scheme going and enrich himself in the process.
So, respectfully, I disagree. May there be other cases that I agree with you on, depending on the particulars? Perhaps so. But not this one.
If you want to become successful sooner or later you'd have to do the same .
As I realized this I am slowly but steadily abandoning the race for money and I am trying to approach it by finding the best deals for the stuff that I like as money saved is money earned and there is very little difference between experiencing a top 85 percentile thing and a top 99.999 percentile thing , but that last 15% man that is what the money exonential really goes crazy