Achi news desk-
FTX founder and former CEO Samuel Bankman-Fried was on Thursday sentenced to 25 years in prison in a fraud and conspiracy case that saw the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange platform and an associated hedge fund.
“I was the CEO of FTX and I was responsible,” Bankman-Fried told Manhattan federal court in New York, adding: “It worries me every day,” according to media reports.
Bankman-Fried, 32, faced multiple charges related to the insertion of FTX, once the world’s third-largest crypto trading platform by daily volume, and its relationship with the trading accounts of hedge fund Alameda Research.
The charges included wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud against FTX customers and against lenders to Alameda Research, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud against FTX investors, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Although Bankman-Fried argued that there was “no loss” at FTX, Judge Lewis Kaplan revealed Thursday that he found the total loss of the fraud to be more than $550 million.
Judge Kaplan also ordered forfeiture of $11.2 billion.
After it was decommissioned in late 2022, FTX recovered $7.3 billion in cash and assets, according to the company’s attorney in April 2023.
Bankman-Fried was convicted on seven counts in November by a jury that held him responsible for about $10 billion in customer deposits that went missing in 2022.
