President Donald Trump said that he has no intention of pardoning Sam Bankman-Fried, the cryptocurrency entrepreneur convicted of stealing billions of dollars from customers in the FTX collapse, even as he defended his backing of the digital asset industry.
Trump Backs Crypto and Family Ventures but Rules Out Pardon for FTX Founder
On Jan. 8, Trump discussed a range of subjects with New York Times, including cryptocurrencies and potential pardons. When a reporter presented him with a list of several prominent inmates, including Bankman-Fried and Nicolás Maduro, the ousted leader of Venezuela who faces multiple charges, he said he did not plan to pardon any of them.
Despite refusing to consider clemency for Bankman-Fried, he defended his support for the cryptocurrency industry, noting that his family is heavily involved in it and that firms linked to their ventures have benefited from lighter securities enforcement during his administration.
“I got a lot of votes because I backed crypto, and I got to like it,” Trump said, adding that his main aim was to make the United States the global leader in the sector. “China wanted it, and one of us was going to get it,” he said.
SBF’s Rise, Collapse, and the Fading Hopes of a Trump Pardon
Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder of FTX, once one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, and owner of trading firm Alameda Research, was seen as a leading figure in digital assets and a major political donor, before FTX collapsed in 2022 after an $8 billion hole was found in customer funds.
After the FTX scandal, the exchange sought bankruptcy protection in November 2022, a move that erased roughly $200 billion from the crypto market. The fallout quickly moved to the courtroom. In 2023, a jury convicted Bankman-Fried on seven fraud and conspiracy charges over his use of customer funds, and he was later handed a 25-year prison sentence.
Hopes for a potential Trump pardon grew among some of his supporters after the president issued a full pardon in January 2025 for Ross Ulbricht, creator of the Silk Road online marketplace, a now-defunct website where users traded goods and services for Bitcoin, citing politics, harsh sentencing, government overreach claims and crypto support.
Bankman-Fried has mounted a legal appeal and, in comments from prison, has tried to cast his actions in a softer light while highlighting his political donations, steps widely seen as an attempt to strengthen a future plea for mercy alongside his court fight. However, those efforts now appear unlikely to succeed after Trump made it clear he will not grant a pardon.
