Sam Bankman-Fried loses bid to appeal against fraud conviction in FTX case

ppseudolus about 4 hours ago 28 commentsRead Article on theguardian.com

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Discussion (28 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

watersb•1 minute ago

He will hold a Cabinet-level position before 2029.

abrowne•about 2 hours ago

Bankman won't be Fried

3stacks•about 2 hours ago

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.

jmyeet•about 2 hours ago

Waste of time. Just buy a pardon [1][2][3][4][5].

[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...

matwood•about 1 hour 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•about 1 hour ago

Why would they? What would be the return for them?

tdb7893•about 1 hour 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.

https://time.com/6241262/sam-bankman-fried-political-donatio...

rootsudo•38 minutes ago

And this is why you play both sides.

vessenes•about 1 hour ago

Trump reportedly was disinterested in SBF money. During his tenure, SBF leaned left - with Clinton and others as paid speakers for events.

benzible•about 1 hour ago

He keeps trying: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2026/06/08/sam-bankman-fried...

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.

CryptoBanker•about 2 hours ago

Good

neonstatic•about 2 hours ago

Good night, sweet prince

NickC25•about 2 hours ago

How utterly predictable.

throw563•about 1 hour ago

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•about 1 hour ago

I think the tiered justice system sucks, but this is no small criminal

Lerc•about 2 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•about 1 hour 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•27 minutes 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.

nullc•23 minutes 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.

root-parent•29 minutes ago

Proof you can graduate from MIT and still be completely dumb.

tsunamifury•about 1 hour ago

Except when you pay someone to manage your money.

Remember this.

gcheong•30 minutes 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.

sbstp•about 1 hour 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

Analemma_•about 1 hour 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•20 minutes 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.

xhkkffbf•about 1 hour 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•18 minutes 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.