Bankman-Fried’s lawyer said a month ago that the disgraced crypto mogul would file an appeal to fight his conviction and sentencing on seven counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money. The attorney reiterated his point Thursday.

In a piece for Guardian Opinion, Molly White, author of the newsletter Web3 Is Going Great, argues, “Since Bankman-Fried’s conviction, there have been no changes that would prevent a new crypto mania just as devastating as the last.

“With no changes to how the industry operates and no watchdogs to check the abuse and greed that have defined it over its now-15 years of existence, we are doomed to see history repeat itself,” she writes.

Yesha Yadav, professor and Associate Dean at Vanderbilt law school, agreed. She said, “Some of the loudest voices pushing for a very long sentence have been in the crypto industry. There is a desire to move on and close the chapter on SBF and the era he represents. But it will take a lot more work. As shown by this trial, his shadow is going to cast a very long legacy over the industry. The trial coverage has been extremely public. His fall from grace could not have been more sharp. Without a real systematic effort to engage in regulatory reform, and to institutionalize high standards, there may be challenges for the industry to shrug off the SBF legacy (and that of others like Binance’s Changpeng Zhao) and move into a more mainstream and widely trusted ecosystem.”

Read more from White’s essay:

Carl Tobias, chair of the University of Richmond Law School, said, “Judge Kaplan’s imposition of punishment was careful and appropriate, as you would expect from a highly experienced Southern District of NY jurist. The 25-year sentence was closer to what the government recommended than what defense counsel suggested. That sentence and the requirement that SBF repay $11 billion should deter SBF and many others who might be inclined to engage in behavior similar to SBF’s that they will be swiftly prosecuted and severely punished, should they choose to do so.”

Gia Weisdorn, professor of practice in business law for Pepperdine Graziadio Business School, said, “This sentence fell somewhere between the various sentencing recommendations. While SBF faced up to 110 years in prison, prosecutors, the federal probation department, and the defense differed markedly on their proposed length of his sentence, with prosecutors recommending 40-50 years, the probation department recommending 100 years, and SBF’s defense requested a maximum of 6.5 years citing mitigating factors.”

Yesha Yadav, professor and Associate Dean at Vanderbilt law school, said, “The sentence today is very much line with expectations – it is clearly designed to deter, underscore the severity of the crimes, while perhaps also being mindful of SBF’s youth and the chance for some rehabilitation going forward. The judge did not buy what SBF was selling today – the apologies came too late to convince the judge who no doubt remembered the highly evasive and self-righteous courtroom behavior at trial and the lack of remorse most of all. The judge seemed to believe that SBF would do this again were he given the chance. 25 years makes sure that there is no chance for him to try his hand at finance during his most productive working years.”

Yadav concurred with the judge’s assessment of Bankman-Fried’s contention that there would, ultimately, be no harm to FTX customers.

“I was stunned by the tone of the defense’s submissions arguing that no harm had come to the public because the bankruptcy would deliver recoveries. First, that is not entirely true. A lot of people will not get the benefit of the upswing. Secondly, it came across as extremely callous in ignoring the emotional harm and financial pain felt by customers over the last two years. Many companies are now gone following the FTX collapse, investors and lenders have lost around $4 billion. So, I am not surprised that the judge put a great deal of weight on the speciousness of this argument and the need to deter others from this kind of criminal and careless behavior.”

Joseph Kotrie-Monson, criminal defence lawyer and cyber crime specialist at Mary Monson said, “25 years does not sound like a lenient sentence, but make no mistake; this was the worst Ponzi scheme upon both large scale and small investors of modern times. Many of Sam Bankman-Fried’s victims were vulnerable, inexperienced investors, who lost life savings. Bankman-Fried’s dishonest conduct and gaslighting of his victims up to his trial and eventual conviction, would have been regarded by Judge Michael Kaplan as substantially aggravating. His defence attorney sought to persuade the court that his sentence should be reduced on the basis that Sam Bankman-Fried was ‘brilliant, complex and humane.’ The jury, however, had already found that Bankman-Fried had used this image to conceal his motives and methods in defrauding investors. This all meant that the judge had little sympathy for the idea of the so-called ‘effective altruist’ being given an easy ride.”

Sam Bankman-Fried faced a maximum sentence of 110 years. Prosecutors asked for 40 to 50. Bankman-Fried’s lawyers asked for six. He got 25.

In advance of Sam Bankman-Fried’s sentencing Thursday, federal prosecutors requested that the ex-mogul, age 32, be sentenced to four or five decades in prison. They argued that the risk of him committing fraud again was too great to allow him lenience.

Bankman-Fried’s lawyers asked for a light sentence, saying that he was a first-time, nonviolent offender. They also argued that FTX’s customers would be paid back in full. The judge roundly rejected the second argument, pointing out that FTX’s customers lost $8bn. FTX’s current CEO has made the same assessment as the judge in court filings.

On Thursday, judge Lewis Kaplan sentenced Bankman-Fried to 25-years in prison.

Before reading the sentencing, Judge Kaplan stated that “this was a very serious crime” and chastised Bankman-Fried for “evasive, hairsplitting” testimony during the trial.

“Never seen a performance quite like that,” Kaplan said.

Kaplan stated that Bankman-Fried’s persistence and marketing abilities meant that it was “not a trivial risk” he would commit wrongdoing again in the future.

He said that, though Bankman-Fried said the word “sorry”, Bankman-Fried “never a word of remorse for the commission of terrible crimes”.

Sam Bankman-Fried has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for masterminding the $8bn fraud that led to the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. He was found guilty on seven charges of wire fraud and conspiracy in November 2023.

Bankman-Fried told the court Thursday morning, “I am sorry”. Previously, Bankman-Fried had expressed little contrition for his role in what happened at FTX. He maintained throughout his trial that he had not committed fraud. On Thursday, however, he said he made “a series of bad decisions” that “haunts me every day”.

“A lot of people feel really let down, and they were very let down, and I am sorry about that. I am sorry about what happened at every stage,” he said. “My useful life is probably over”.

Judge Lewis Kaplan said at the start of the hearing that Sam Bankman-Fried had committed crimes during and after his trial in addition to the wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money the 32-year-old was convicted of.

Kaplan said Bankman-Fried communicated with FTX’s former general counsel before the ex-CEO was remanded into custody. Bankman-Fried’s bail was revoked before his trial after the diary of his ex-girlfriend, Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, leaked to The New York Times. Bankman-Fried also committed perjury while testifying, Kaplan said, when Bankman-Fried said that he had not known that Alameda Research, a hedge fund closely tied to FTX, was spending FTX customer deposits for its own ends.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s sentencing hearing has begun in Manhattan federal court before Judge Lewis Kaplan.

Facing more than 100 years in prison, though prosecutors have asked for 40-50 and his own attorneys have asked for just six, he has been detained in Brooklyn since his trial in November. The former CEO is in the courthouse.

FTX imploded in November 2022 after Bankman-Fried and those in his inner circle comingled funds from the exchange with a closely associated hedge fund, Alameda Research. The result was Bankman-Fried and others using their customers’ money for their own personal ends. The illegal mixture created an $8bn budget shortfall that, when enough customers asked to withdraw their cryptocurrency, brought the exchange crashing down.

Bankman-Fried maintained his innocence throughout a month-long trial last year. Prosecutors said that the CEO “misappropriated and embezzled” billions of dollars in his management of FTX. He was convicted in November on seven counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money.

Bankman-Fried continues to contend that any mistakes he made have solutions within easy reach, writing in a February bankruptcy filing that FTX’s “harm to customers, lenders and investors is zero” because “the money was there – not lost”.

The CEO appointed to oversee FTX’s complex bankruptcy, John Ray, has lambasted Bankman-Fried’s conduct during the trial and its aftermath. He called Bankman-Fried’s recent statements “demonstrably false”.

“Mr Bankman-Fried continues to live a life of delusion. The ‘business’ he left on 11 November 2022 was neither solvent nor safe,” Ray wrote in a 20 March court filing. Ray said Bankman-Fried lavished company funds on “luxury homes, private jets, and overpriced speculative ventures”.

“Customers will never be in the same position they would have had they not crossed paths with Mr Bankman-Fried and his so-called brand of ‘altruism’,” Ray wrote.

Bankman-Fried’s inner circle lived with him in a $35m, 12,000 sq ft penthouse overlooking a yacht marina in the Bahamas while they ran the company together.

In a stark reversal of fortune, though, several members of FTX’s top brass testified against him during his trial. Caroline Ellison, his on-again, off-again girlfriend of several years and the CEO of Alameda Research, served as the prosecution’s star witness. She confessed to committing fraud and said on the stand that she had done so repeatedly at Bankman-Fried’s direction. She made a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to seven counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyer said in late February that the suggested 100-year prison sentence for the FTX founder would be “grotesque” and “barbaric” and at most a term of a few years behind bars would be appropriate for crimes that the disgraced cryptocurrency mogul still disputes.

In pre-sentencing arguments filed just minutes before deadline in Manhattan federal court, attorney Marc Mukasey said a report by probation officers improperly calculated federal sentencing guidelines to recommend a sentence just 10 years short of the maximum potential 110-year sentence. Bankman-Fried, known for his casual clothing and wild hair, was convicted of seven counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money in November 2023.

A proper sentence, Mukasey said, would be based on guidelines that would call for between five and six and a half years in prison, at most.

“Sam is not the ‘evil genius’ depicted in the media or the greedy villain described at trial,” Mukasey wrote. “Sam is a first-time, non-violent offender, who was joined in the conduct at issue by at least four other culpable individuals, in a matter where victims are poised to recover – were always poised to recover – a hundred cents on the dollar.”

In mid-March, federal prosecutors requested that judge Lewis Kaplan sentence Bankman-Fried to at least four decades in prison. The maximum penalty he could face would amount to more than 100 years.

“His life in recent years has been one of unmatched greed and hubris; of ambition and rationalization; and courting risk and gambling repeatedly with other people’s money,” the US attorneys in Manhattan wrote. “And even now Bankman-Fried refuses to admit what he did was wrong.”

Sam Bankman-Fried, once the CEO of FTX and a billionaire wunderkind of the cryptocurrency world, will be sentenced to prison Thursday morning in New York City. He was convicted on seven counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money in November.

Should the judge in his case impose the harshest penalty allowed, the 32-year-old would face more than 100 years and die an incarcerated man, a possibility his lawyer has called “grotesque”.

In advance of the hearing, lawyers for the US Department of Justice and for Bankman-Fried have engaged in bitter back-and-forth over how long of a prison sentence would be appropriate. His lawyers have argued for a minimal sentence of just six years. Prosecutors are advocating for 40-50 years for his “unmatched greed and hubris” in perpetrating the $8bn (£6.3bn) fraud.

Sam Bankman-Fried deserves 40 to 50 years for FTX fraud, prosecutors say.