Sam Bankman-Fried has formally requested a presidential pardon, more than two years after his conviction over the $10 billion collapse of crypto exchange FTX.
Key Points:
- Bankman-Fried filed a formal clemency petition with the Justice Department's pardon office.
- President Trump said in January he had no plans to free the former FTX chief.
- Betting markets put the odds of a 2026 pardon at roughly 7%.
Bankman-Fried Files Clemency Petition
Bloomberg first reported the petition, which the 34-year-old quietly filed through the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney. He asked for a pardon after the completion of his sentence, the agency's public case tracker showed. The notice does not name the lawyer who put the request together.
A jury convicted him in November 2023 on seven counts of fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering, and the court handed down a 25-year term in 2024 alongside an $11 billion forfeiture order. Prosecutors said the exchange's failure cost customers, lenders and investors $10 billion.
Bankman-Fried has long maintained his innocence from behind bars. He argues that FTX faced a short liquidity crunch rather than true insolvency, and that prosecutors targeted him for political reasons. A White House spokesperson and a representative for the former executive did not respond to requests for comment.
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Trump Resistance and Republican Pushback
Donald Trump told the New York Times in January that he had no plans to free Bankman-Fried, even as his second-term clemency has reached dozens of white-collar defendants.
The president has already pardoned crypto figures such as Changpeng Zhao and Ross Ulbricht.
Pro-crypto Republicans in Congress have opposed the campaign in blunt terms. Bankman-Fried's case still carries heavy political baggage, partly because his fraud wiped out billions of dollars in customer money and rattled the wider crypto market. His petition also lands amid a busy pardon market, where some lawyers quote as much as $1 million to prepare a case.
Betting markets remain skeptical, with Polymarket traders pricing the chance of a 2026 pardon at roughly 7%.
For months, Bankman-Fried has worked the conservative media circuit to court the White House. He said from prison this year that he would "absolutely" welcome relief, while his parents, both former Stanford law professors, have lobbied Trump-linked lawyers since early 2025. The FTX estate, meanwhile, has repaid many customers in full, returning $2.2 billion in a single distribution this March, a sharp turn from the wreckage that first put him behind bars.
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