FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried Wants to Launch a New Token After Prison

A Token Pitch From Behind Bars

According to a New York Magazine feature, Bankman-Fried has been telling those astir him that his crypto ambitions did not extremity with FTX’s implosion. Fellow inmate David Bunevacz recounted that SBF often spoke astir needing tens of millions of dollars to physique a concern worthy running. When pressed connected his plans aft release, the disgraced laminitis reportedly said helium would commencement a token and that radical would flock to it.

The assurance is striking, fixed Bankman-Fried was convicted successful 2023 connected 7 counts of fraud and conspiracy tied to the astir $11 cardinal illness of FTX and its sister trading steadfast Alameda Research, 1 of the largest fiscal frauds successful US history. Yet by the inmate’s account, the antheral astatine the halfway of it inactive treats a token motorboat arsenic an evident adjacent measurement alternatively than a closed chapter.

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The harder occupation for immoderate aboriginal SBF coin is timing, arsenic Bankman-Fried is serving a 25-year sentence, and his bid for a new trial was denied successful April 2026, erstwhile Judge Lewis Kaplan dismissed his fresh-evidence claims arsenic baseless. His nonstop entreaty to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals remains active, but nary ruling has overturned the verdict.

Earlier this month, his ineligible squad formally filed a statesmanlike pardon application with the U.S. Department of Justice, a determination that concisely sent the defunct exchange’s FTT token up 50%. President Donald Trump has publically declined to pardon him twice, citing the size of the fraud. Barring a palmy entreaty oregon enforcement clemency, SBF would not beryllium freed until astir 2044, making immoderate token helium yet launches a communicative for the adjacent decade, not this marketplace cycle.

In a marketplace similar crypto, property and communicative routinely outrun fundamentals, truthful adjacent an offhand situation remark stands to transportation weight, particularly since the assemblage has spent 2 years processing FTX’s wreckage. Most recently, a Silicon Valley instrumentality steadfast settled FTX fraud claims for $54 cardinal successful a motion that the ineligible fallout is inactive unwinding.

Against that backdrop, the thought of an SBF-branded coin is not that far-fetched, particularly since memecoin civilization has repeatedly shown that a recognizable sanction (even an infamous one) tin nonstop a token soaring connected hype alone, with small underlying utility. And, portion traders who mislaid wealth connected FTX whitethorn recoil astatine the notion, speculators chasing the adjacent viral motorboat whitethorn not care.

For now, the speech is conscionable that and Bankman-Fried controls nary funds helium tin legally deploy. On apical of that, helium inactive faces years of appeals and remains barred from the manufacture helium erstwhile dominated, but his remarks are a reminder that the FTX saga could beryllium acold from implicit and that its cardinal fig inactive sees himself returning to the arena.