Sam Bankman-Fried is aiming to have his 25-year prison sentence thrown out over the belief he was not able to provide evidence to support his claims FTX was solvent.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, and his lawyers are set to appeal his 25-year prison sentence in front of a Manhattan Federal Appeals Court today (November 4).
The former FTX CEO was sentenced on March 28, 2024 after a jury found him unanimously guilty of seven counts of wire fraud and conspiracy over the collapse of the crypto exchange, which lost billions upon billions of investor dollars.
However, his lawyers will appear before the US Circuit Court of Appeals to argue Bankman-Fried did not face a fair trial.
The defence claim evidence supporting the fact FTX had enough funds to cover investor withdrawals was not allowed during the week-long hearing in October 2024.
While Bankman-Fried admitted to “mistakes” during his time as CEO of FTX, he argued he did not steal money from investors. This will also be supported by his lawyers and will also defend claims the company was solvent.
In a post published on X by Michael Bloch, a criminal defence and civil rights attorney not affiliated to the Bankman-Fried case, came to the defence of the FTX founder, claiming the judicial process was a “rush to injustice”.
Following his guilty verdict in October 2023, US Attorney Damian Williams labelled Bankman-Fried’s role in the collapse of FTX as “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history”.
Amid Bankman-Fried’s lawyers appeal, prosecutors maintain in a court filing that the evidence during the trial and the testimonies from cooperating witnesses, such as former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, proved his guilty verdict.
A Trump pardon? There is a precedence
If Bankman-Fried’s appeal is rejected, there are reports suggesting his team could reach out to President Donald Trump to pardon him.
The Wall Street Journal revealed Bankman-Fried’s parents have reached out for advice from an attorney who worked on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. There are also wider reports believing his team will reach out to Trump for a pardon.
Since entering office for a second term, Trump’s pro-crypto advocacy has seen the President throw out lawsuits against crypto exchanges such as Ripple and Binance from the previous administration.
But perhaps most prominent for Bankman-Fried’s case is the recent pardoning of Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao, Founder of Binance and former CEO.
Zhao was granted a full presidential pardon on October 23, 2025 after serving four months in prison for admitting to his involvement in anti-money laundering failures at Binance. Zhao also paid a $50m fine and Binance forked out $4.3bn to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
During a recent episode of 60 Minutes on CNN, Trump was quizzed on why he pardoned Zhao, to which the President responded with “Okay are you ready? I don’t know who he is.”
Trump was then asked whether Zhao’s pardoning was related to Binance’s $2bn investment into World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin, which is operated by his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.
“My sons are into it,” Trump said. “I’m glad they are, because it’s probably a great industry, crypto. I think it’s good. You know, they’re running a business, they’re not in government.”
