Sam Bankman-Fried Takes His $11 Billion Fight to the Supreme Court

Two Asks, Not One

The latest filing does 2 abstracted things, namely:

• First, the conviction: Bankman-Fried’s lawyers reason the proceedings tribunal improperly barred him from presenting grounds that FTX and Alameda Research, portion temporarily illiquid, held capable assets to yet marque customers and investors whole.
• The 2nd is money: They contend the $11 cardinal forfeiture bid violates the Eighth Amendment’s excessive fines clause.

Either 1 succeeding would beryllium significant, and unneurotic they could magnitude to an effort to unwind the azygous largest fraud judgement successful crypto history.

Image source: CNN

Bankman-Fried co-founded FTX, erstwhile among the largest cryptocurrency exchanges successful the world, and is serving 25 years aft a assemblage convicted him connected 7 counts of fraud, conspiracy and wealth laundering. The exchange’s November 2022 illness exposed an $8 cardinal shortfall successful lawsuit accounts.

Why Kousisis Is the Hinge

In June 2026, a three-judge sheet of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the conviction. It leaned connected Kousisis v. United States, a 2025 Supreme Court determination holding that behaviour tin represent ligament fraud adjacent without intent to origin nett economical harm. Per that notion, whether the victims yet got their wealth backmost is beside the constituent and the deception itself is the crime.

Bankman-Fried’s squad is trying to crook that ruling astir and their statement runs astir arsenic follows, i.e. if prosecutors bash not request to beryllium economical nonaccomplishment to triumph a fraud conviction, past grounds of economical nonaccomplishment should not beryllium admissible astatine proceedings either.

However, if prosecutors are allowed to enactment nonaccomplishment grounds successful beforehand of a assemblage anyway, the defence indispensable beryllium allowed to rebut it with grounds pointing the different way.

It is simply a symmetry argument, and it is the astir credible happening successful the filing. The weakness is that the Supreme Court decided Kousisis precocious and decisively, and the justices seldom revisit their ain reasoning wrong a twelvemonth to assistance a suspect whose lawsuit it was utilized against.

The Other Track Already Failed

The courtroom is Bankman-Fried’s 2nd route. He formally submitted a presidential pardon application to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney connected June 8, requesting a pardon aft completion of sentence, a designation that restores definite civilian rights without shortening the term. President Donald Trump publically rejected the thought twice, citing the standard of the fraud.

The U.S. Senate past removed immoderate ambiguity by unanimously approving S.Res. 772, a bipartisan solution opposing immoderate pardon oregon commutation for the erstwhile FTX chief. Bankman-Fried’s parents had pushed the campaign publically aft Trump commuted Ross Ulbricht’s sentence.

His earlier attempt astatine a caller trial besides failed erstwhile Judge Lewis Kaplan denied that question successful April, dismissing the fresh-evidence claims arsenic baseless.

The Road From Here

Filing a petition for a writ of certiorari is not the aforesaid arsenic getting a hearing. The Supreme Court receives thousands of these each word and agrees to perceive astir 1%. Four of the 9 justices indispensable ballot to assistance review. The tribunal is expected to determine aboriginal successful 2026 whether to instrumentality the case.

If certiorari is denied, which is the statistical default, the conviction, the condemnation and the forfeiture each stand, and Bankman-Fried’s nonstop appeals are efficaciously exhausted. If it is granted, the lawsuit becomes a conveyance for clarifying however acold Kousisis reaches, with consequences good beyond crypto.

Either way, the FTX property has moved connected without him. Cumulative distributions to creditors since aboriginal 2025 attack $10 billion, with a fifth tranche of astir $900 million starting July and dotcom and U.S. lawsuit claims reaching 105% cumulative recovery.

Claims are valued astatine November 2022 petition-date prices, erstwhile bitcoin traded adjacent $16,000, truthful a lawsuit who held 1 BTC connected the speech is repaid about $16,871 for it. Getting 105% backmost successful dollars portion the bitcoin terms sits supra $77,000 is the grievance that has ne'er gone away.

Bankman-Fried, for his part, has floated launching a caller token erstwhile helium is out.