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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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

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