Prosecutors Recommend 40-50 Years in Prison for Cryptocurrency Guru Bankman-Fried

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have assured this Friday that Sam Bankman-Fried, the cryptocurrency magnate disgraced by the collapse of the FTX platform, deserves a sentence of 40 to 50 years in prison as responsible for seven crimes of fraud and conspiracy.

Prosecutors filed their sentencing recommendation for him today in US District Court in Manhattan.

The hearing is scheduled for March 28, and there Federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan will announce the length of the sentence, starting with a maximum sentence of 110 years.

Bankman-Fried was found guilty last November of stealing $8 billion from customers of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

“His life of his in recent years has been a [life] of unparalleled greed and arrogance;

of ambition and rationalization;

courting risk and repeatedly gambling with other people's money,” federal prosecutors in Manhattan have written.

“And even now Bankman-Fried refuses to admit that what he did was wrong.”

Lawyers for the 32-year-old former billionaire suggested to Judge Kaplan that a sentence of between 5.5 and 6.5 years in prison would be appropriate, ensuring that FTX clients would recover most of their money and that the intention In no case was his client stealing from them.

The defendant, who last August saw his house arrest revoked and had to enter prison in New York, plans to appeal his conviction and sentence.

The prosecution's response to the defense's request could not have been more forceful.

“Justice demands that a prison sentence be imposed commensurate with the extraordinary dimensions of his crimes,” prosecutors state in a 116-page memorandum addressed to the judge and presented this Friday.

Just a year and a half ago, Bankman-Fried (known by his initials, SBF), was one of the sector's leading lights, leading the $40 billion FTX exchange.

But overnight the platform collapsed and attracted the scrutinizing attention of the FBI and then of justice.

Among the actions that put SBF in the dock after being extradited to the United States from the Bahamas, where FTX had its headquarters, also included the financing of political campaigns of representatives of both parties in Washington, fraud of law and deception, irregular attempt to unlocking 1 billion from his hedge fund frozen by Beijing, investments in other companies and luxurious real estate purchases, such as the villa in the Bahamas where Bankman-Fried and his small group of intimates speculated in cryptocurrencies.

His then partner, head of the Alameda hedge fund, also belonged to the circle of trust, who was a key witness during the trial by declaring that he committed fraud in the firm together with Bankman.

Although bitcoin has broken price records this month, the implosion of FTX and the subsequent arrest and conviction of its main architect were considered a warning to sailors, in an insufficiently regulated sector.

Although regarding the laxity of the sector, it is worth remembering the statements of Damian Williams, federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, after the verdict: “The crypto industry may be new, but this type of fraud, this type of corruption, is as old as the time".

The precedent of FTX as a paradigm of corruption will be consecrated by the presumably exemplary sentence imposed on the

guru at the end of the month, while the prices of most digital assets have skyrocketed, in the path of bitcoin.

The prosecutors' recommendation, however, cuts in half the initial prospect of a possible life sentence.

According to court records, the agent in charge of supervising the conditions of his parole - which Bankman-Fried achieved after posting a bail of 250 million dollars, to live under the guardianship of his parents in the family mansion in Palo Alto - recommended a sentence of 100 years, only 10 years less than the maximum.

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