Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has ramped up his social media reward for US president Donald Trump whereas taking purpose at former president Joe Biden, simply days after Caroline Ellison, the previous CEO of Alameda Analysis, was launched from federal custody.
Since Bankman-Fried’s February 2025 interview with the New York Solar and March look with political commentator Tucker Carlson, many see Bankman-Fried as angling for a pardon from Trump.
“@realdonaldtrump is true on crypto,” Bankman-Fried said in an X publish on Friday, simply days after Ellison walked free after serving 440 days in jail for her position within the 2022 collapse of FTX.
Bankman-Fried calls Trump’s arrest of Maduro “good” and “gutsy”
Bankman-Fried additionally praised Trump on points past crypto, together with the latest arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, calling the transfer “good, gutsy, and pro-democracy.”
On the similar time, Bankman-Fried took purpose on the earlier administration, which he as soon as backed with thousands and thousands in political donations.
“All of the world leaders I met had been fed up with Biden,” he mentioned, including that he “bungled crypto.”
Bankman-Fried argued that he “did not need to” as there was “a lot within the social gathering had cheap ideas.” “However he selected [Gary] Gensler for SEC chair,” Bankman-Fried mentioned.
Gensler adopted a “regulation earlier than enforcement” strategy to crypto and stepped down in January 2025, forward of Trump’s inauguration.
Prediction platform odds for a Bankman-Fried pardon sit at 17%
Gensler’s successor, Paul Atkins, who was sworn in by Trump in April 2025, is broadly considered within the crypto trade as much more crypto-friendly.
Following the collapse of FTX in November 2022, US authorities extradited Bankman-Fried from the Bahamas to face prices, together with cash laundering and fraud. A jury convicted the previous CEO on seven felony counts in November 2023, and a choose sentenced him to 25 years in jail in March 2024.
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In November 2025, Bankman-Fried appealed his conviction and sentence and is awaiting ends in the US Courtroom of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Merchants on crypto predictions platform Polymarket at the moment assign only a 17% likelihood that Trump will pardon Bankman-Fried earlier than 2027.
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