Memecoins went up 300x As Sam Bankman-Fried Gets 25-Year Prison Sentence
Last Thursday, the fate of disgraced businessman Sam Bankman-Fried, whose fraudulent actions led to the biggest fall of the cryptocurrency market, was finally decided. The court sentenced the former FTX CEO to 25 years in prison. The decision sparked a rally in the memecoin market.
Sam Bankman-Fried will spend 25 years behind bars. Judge Lewis Kaplan reached that decision on March 28. Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of FTX, was charged with seven charges of fraud, including falsifying testimony and perjury. His actions led to the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, followed by dire consequences for the entire cryptocurrency market.
Judge Kaplan: It is the judgment of the court that you are sentenced to 240 months then consecutive 60 [etc] for a total of 300 months [25 years]
— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) March 28, 2024
The trial went on for several months and only last Thursday Judge Kaplan handed down the final verdict. According to him, as a result of fraudulent manipulations, customers, creditors, and investors of the exchange lost 11 billion dollars in total.
Prosecutors had previously requested 50 years in prison for Bankman-Fried, given the fact that at least three FTX customers committed suicide. Attorneys considered such a sentence inappropriate and requested a 6 1/2-year sentence for their client.
The judge was not satisfied with defense attorneys' attempts to portray Bankman-Fried as a quirky genius, a bumbling nerd who cares about video games, animal welfare and veganism. He also rejected a defense request to consider potential victim restitution as a mitigating factor.
The 25-year prison sentence drew mixed reactions from the cryptocurrency community. Many felt the sentence was not long enough, as it did not reflect the severity of the crime. Edward Snowden contrasted (in a now deleted tweet) Bankman-Fried's crime with that of Chelsea Manning, who received 35 years in prison for leaking classified information. Snowden believes that Bankman-Fried committed a much worse crime than Manning.
Others, however, thought the sentence for Bankman-Fried was justified. Mark Bini, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney, noted that Judge Kaplan emphasized many sentencing factors that made the decision commensurate.
Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market also reacted to the court's decision. Hours before the verdict, one unknown developer launched the Sam Baseman Fraud memecoin with the ticker FTX on the Base network. In just a few hours, the memecoin grew by 35,000%. The token was soon subjected to severe volatility.
Also, yesterday, another memecoin inspired by the personality of Sam Bankman-Freud hit the market. Som Bonkmon Fraud (SBF) token based on the Solana network grew by 15,000%. The trading volume of this coin amounted to $24 million. However, as is typical of many such assets, the coin fell sharply after a few hours.
Cryptocurrencies from the top 10 had almost no reaction to the court's decision. But FTX Token (FTT), the native coin of the now defunct exchange, fell by more than 16%.
