Trump has repeatedly refused to pardon SBF, and Polymarket gives the probability of SBF being pardoned by the end of the year at only 8%.

Written by: Oluwapelumi Adejumo

Translated by: Chopper, Foresight News

TL;DR:

• Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) formally applied for a presidential pardon, with the FTT token rising more than 50% within 24 hours.
• The surge has nothing to do with the actual value of the token and is purely speculative betting on his pardon application.
• Trump has repeatedly refused a pardon, and the predicted probability of approval in the market is only 8%, making trading extremely risky.

The disgraced founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), is serving a 25-year sentence in federal prison for orchestrating one of the largest financial frauds in American history. However, cryptocurrency speculators are betting that a newly submitted presidential pardon application could change his fate.

SBF seeks a pardon from Trump

This week, SBF officially submitted his application for an executive pardon through the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Pardon Attorneys website. This move marks the escalation of months of secret lobbying efforts by his family and legal team, which violates common legal practices and breaks the rule that one must wait five years after a conviction to apply for a pardon.

However, the chances of approval are minuscule, as President Trump has repeatedly refused to grant any pardon to SBF. Notably, traders on the blockchain-based prediction market Polymarket currently estimate that Bankman-Fried has only an 8% probability of receiving a presidential pardon before the end of the year.

Probability of SBF receiving a pardon on Polymarket before year-end

Speculative surge of a ghost token

Despite political analysts and the prediction market believing that the probability of pardon approval is extremely low, the mere news of "submitting an application" is enough to trigger a speculative frenzy in digital asset exchanges.

Data from CryptoSlate shows that SBF's legal maneuvers directly benefited FTX's native token, FTT. Currently, FTT has become a ghost asset: since the FTX collapse and bankruptcy in November 2022, the token has no actual use case, no development team to maintain it, and no underlying business support.

However, the cryptocurrency market has always been driven by sentiment, narrative of difficulties, and algorithms. After the news of the pardon application broke, FTT's 24-hour increase exceeded 50%, peaking at $0.35, a significant rebound from its previous historical low of $0.2141. Meanwhile, data from CoinMarketCap shows that the trading volume of this bankrupt token surged over 600%, breaking through $16 million.

Market data indicates that about 30% of speculative trading occurred on Binance, a competitor that had previously triggered the FTX bank run by liquidating its holdings of FTT at the end of 2022.

This recent surge suggests that some market participants view FTT as a political option betting on SBF’s fate. Traders believe that if the pardon is granted, the market may briefly reignite interest in FTX-related assets, making FTT a direct betting instrument.

It should be clarified that such trading has no relation to legal processes or bankruptcy claims. A presidential pardon cannot restore FTX operations, cannot restart the original functions of FTT, and cannot change the creditor claim structure; it can only affect SBF's personal freedom and political narrative.

SBF's defense

In March 2024, a jury found SBF guilty of two counts of wire fraud, two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, as well as securities fraud, commodities fraud, and conspiracy related to money laundering. Federal prosecutors accused him of misappropriating billions of dollars in FTX customer funds, defrauding exchange investors, and misleading Alameda Research lenders.

Ultimately, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan sentenced him to 25 years in prison, 3 years of supervised release, and ordered the forfeiture of over $11 billion in assets.

However, SBF has always denied the public characterization of the FTX collapse. In interviews and online statements, he claimed that the exchange faced a liquidity crisis rather than being truly insolvent and that the state of asset recovery after bankruptcy demonstrates that customer funds could have been fully refunded.

His core argument centers on the remaining assets of FTX and the value of venture capital, asserting that at the time of bankruptcy, assets exceeded liabilities and that control of the company should not be handed over to external restructuring consultants. This claim contradicts the evidence presented by the prosecution during the trial.

Government evidence showed that FTX customer deposits were secretly transferred to Alameda to cover trading losses, make investments, purchase property, fund political donations, and repay debts. Multiple former FTX executives testified against SBF. FTX's former general counsel, Ryne Miller, also publicly rebutted his claim of "solvency," stating that when the company collapsed in November 2022, its assets were far from sufficient to cover its debts, and internal personnel were still urgently piecing together an asset list and raising emergency funds.

Trump pardons crypto peers, SBF is the exception

Despite aggressive lobbying efforts, SBF faces a very grim political reality. In January 2026, Trump clearly refused to pardon SBF in an interview with The New York Times, and the White House maintained this position subsequently.

Although Trump frequently exercises his pardon power, including pardoning Binance founder Changpeng Zhao in October 2025 and previously commuting the sentences of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht and BitMEX executive Arthur Hayes, the nature of the SBF case is entirely different. Previous pardons were often interpreted as correcting regulatory overreach, addressing anti-money laundering technical issues, or promoting criminal justice reform.

The SBF case is recognized as a blatant misappropriation of public funds at the level of tens of billions of dollars, causing millions of ordinary retail investors to suffer severe losses. Even among Republican supporters of cryptocurrency in Congress, pardon proposals faced strong opposition. Senator Bernie Moreno bluntly stated, "This person should not be pardoned; he should serve his time."

Many industry professionals in the cryptocurrency space share the same sentiment, stating that "pardoning SBF is not about releasing a fraudster, but about condoning thousands of future fraudsters. It sends a dangerous signal: misappropriating billions of dollars, then rebranding inside prison as a MAGA figure, can lead to freedom."