Bankman-Fried will have plenty of time to consider his crimes
Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of FTX, has been handed down a 25-year prison sentence for what has been considered one of the biggest financial crimes in US history: little wonder, throughout the trial he showed zero remorse and gave the impression he would do it all over again if he could.
There’s no doubt that while harsh, this sentence is well deserved: we’re talking about a man who took advantage of his popularity to create a fake narrative of a wunderkind, the son of two Stanford professors, and with it, took his clients’ money, and instead of looking after it, instead invested it in highly risky assets. Meanwhile, he created another company and invented his own cryptocurrency to try to pay his debts with it, while at the same time buying luxurious properties in the Bahamas. And then it all turned to custard.
Guilty of all charges. When, in November 2022, he resigned as CEO of the company, and a month later was arrested in the Bahamas, he had made the cover of business magazines such as Forbes or Fortune, donated millions to politicians, sponsored stadiums with the name of his company, advertised during the Super Bowl and had conned a lot of people out of a lot of money. All he had to say to himself and his friends was “what a ride!”, and to everyone else, “sorry, I fucked up”.
