Sam Bankman-Fried, the 34-year-old co-founder and former CEO of the collapsed FTX cryptocurrency exchange, formally requested a presidential pardon from President Donald Trump on June 8, 2026. The petition appeared on the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney website on Monday morning, marking a direct attempt by the former billionaire to seek executive clemency while serving a 25-year federal prison sentence.
The application is officially listed as a “pardon after completion of sentence.” This specific designation typically focuses on restoring civil rights, such as the right to vote or serve on a jury, and removing barriers to professional licensing rather than granting an immediate release from custody.
Bankman-Fried is currently held at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Hazelton in West Virginia, having previously been detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Confirming his intentions in a phone interview with Fox Business on Monday, Bankman-Fried stated he “absolutely” wants a pardon, while acknowledging the final decision rests with the president. This interview marked his first on-record media appearance from behind bars. His parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, have reportedly been exploring clemency options through lawyers connected to the Trump administration since early 2025.
Public lobbying and shifting narratives from prison
For several months, Bankman-Fried has used social media and interviews to refurbish his image. He has posted on X, formerly Twitter, in support of President Trump’s foreign policy decisions and previous clemency actions. In one notable post from February, he claimed the same legal “playbook” used against him was being applied to the president.
His recent outreach follows a history as a major Democratic donor, having contributed over $40 million during the 2022 midterms.
Beyond social media, Bankman-Fried has attempted to appeal to conservative audiences, including a 2025 appearance on Tucker Carlson’s program. This strategy aligns with President Trump’s previous decisions to grant clemency to other crypto figures, such as industry leaders monitoring geopolitical shifts like Ross Ulbricht and Changpeng Zhao.
Trump has framed such moves as fulfilling campaign promises to end what he described as a “war on crypto.”
Bankman-Fried’s legal defense for clemency centers on the argument that his prosecution was unjust. He maintains that FTX suffered from a liquidity crisis rather than insolvency. He frequently cites that bankruptcy proceedings are expected to return approximately 170% of original deposits to customers, arguing the actual financial harm was mitigated.
He has also noted that Judge Lewis Kaplan presided over both his fraud trial and a defamation case lost by the president.
Market volatility and the FTT token reaction
News of the formal pardon request triggered immediate volatility in cryptocurrency markets. The FTX Token (FTT) jumped roughly 50% intraday following the Bloomberg report on the filing. Traders often react to high-profile legal developments involving defunct exchanges, similar to how Bitcoin transfers to major exchanges can influence broader market sentiment.
Despite the price surge, betting markets remain skeptical about the likelihood of a successful pardon. On Polymarket, odds for any form of presidential clemency for Bankman-Fried fluctuated between 20% and 35% on Monday. Other data sources suggest much slimmer prospects, citing a probability as low as 7% for a pardon within the 2026 calendar year.
These low odds reflect the severity of the original 2023 conviction.
Evidence and the 25-year sentence
Bankman-Fried was convicted in November 2023 on seven counts of fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering. Prosecutors proved he misused billions in customer deposits to fund risky bets at his hedge fund, Alameda Research. The court found that FTX customers lost $8 billion, while equity investors and lenders lost an additional $3 billion combined. An $11 billion forfeiture order accompanied his sentence.
President Trump has previously expressed hesitation regarding the case. In a January 2026 interview with The New York Times, the president stated he had “no intention of pardoning” the former FTX chief.
While the administration has shown favor toward other crypto-related figures, the scale of the FTX collapse remains a significant political hurdle for any clemency petition. For now, we continue to monitor policy shifts regarding digital assets as the pardon process moves through the Justice Department.
The Office of the Pardon Attorney processes thousands of applications annually, and while it provides recommendations, the president is not bound by them. Bankman-Fried continues to appeal his conviction and sentence through traditional legal channels alongside this clemency bid. Without an intervention or a successful appeal, he is slated to serve the remainder of his term, which ends in the late 2040s.