- Sam Bankman-Fried formally requested a presidential pardon from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Pardon Attorney.
- The FTX co-founder is serving a 25-year sentence for fraud tied to the $10 billion collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange in 2022.
- The White House and Bankman-Fried's representatives did not immediately comment.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced co-founder of FTX, has applied for a presidential pardon, seeking relief from his 25-year prison sentence for orchestrating a massive fraud that led to the exchange's implosion. The request was submitted to the Justice Department’s Pardon Attorney Office, according to people familiar with the matter.
Bankman-Fried was convicted in 2024 on multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy, stemming from the misappropriation of customer funds that contributed to FTX’s bankruptcy in November 2022. The collapse wiped out billions in investor and customer assets, triggering a crisis of confidence across the cryptocurrency industry and accelerating regulatory crackdowns worldwide.
The pardon petition lands amid ongoing bankruptcy proceedings and asset recovery efforts, which have returned only a fraction of lost funds to creditors. It also intersects with broader political debates about clemency for high-profile white-collar criminals, a topic that has drawn mixed reactions in financial and tech communities.
Attempts to reach the White House and Bankman-Fried’s legal team for comment were unsuccessful. The Justice Department’s review process for the petition is expected to take months, and the outcome remains uncertain. A grant of clemency would erase the federal conviction, though civil liabilities tied to the FTX collapse would remain.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled Bankman-Fried's name. This has been corrected.