Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s chances of being pardoned by US President Donald Trump have more than doubled since Changpeng Zhao was pardoned. Or at least that’s what Polymarket users say.
Polymarket will tell you the truth!
The Polymarket blockchain betting platform allows you to bet on many scenarios and earn money if one of them comes true. Now its users are wondering whether Donald Trump will pardon former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. There is a 15% chance that this will happen this year.
The betting odds on whether the former FTX boss will be “released from custody in 2025” increased from 4.3% to 15%. The heist came after the US president pardoned Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao.
What does Bankman-Fried do?
The most interested person is in prison and has appealed to reduce his 25-year sentence. It is unlikely that there will be any significant changes in his case by the end of the year. Unless he actually gets pardoned by Trump. However, it is worth remembering that Bankman-Fried is a member of a family with strong ties to the Democratic Party, and the former head of FTX himself sponsored Democratic election campaigns. His chances of being pardoned will certainly increase when Trump’s political rivals return to power. However, this is not likely to happen.
Another thing is that we are talking about a completely different scale of crime. CZ violated U.S. anti-money laundering laws by allowing illicit funds to flow through Binance, and Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud, conspiracy to launder money, and misappropriation of his clients’ funds.
CZ was sentenced to four months in prison, and the ex-CEO of FTX was sentenced to 25 years.
No chance of pardon?
Cryptocurrency lawyer Jake Chervinsky says he would be “truly shocked” if the Trump administration pardoned Bankman-Fried, pointing out that he was a “democratic megadonor.”
In turn, Sasha Hodder, founder of the law firm Hodder Law, noted that the scale of CZ’s crime did not compare to the scale of what Do Kwon or Bankman-Fried did.
