SBF Prison Experiment: Second Appeal Rejected, Slim Hope for Pardon, Still Claims Innocence and Seeks Release

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for fraud and conspiracy at California’s Lompoc Federal Correctional Complex, with key legal proceedings tied to March 2024. This June, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his latest appeal, cutting off additional legal recourse. Around the same time, SBF filed a formal presidential pardon application, and prediction market Polymarket puts his odds of securing a pardon by 2027 at roughly 14%. Supporters are pushing for SBF’s release through multiple channels: his parents have hired two Republican lobbyists to lobby the incoming Trump administration, his mother Barbara Fried posts regularly on Substack proclaiming his innocence, and an anonymous website (freesbf.org) plus several X accounts are rallying public support. But obstacles to a pardon are mounting: Trump himself stated earlier this year he has "no plans" to pardon SBF, and prominent pro-crypto Republican Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis has publicly opposed the effort, dimming his political prospects for relief. For context, Binance’s former head CZ—who was convicted of money laundering—did receive a Trump pardon, in part because his exchange platform backed Trump’s family’s crypto project, World Liberty Financial. Behind bars, SBF has stayed active in writing and legal work: he’s serializing a prison memoir titled *Manfred*, drafting a document called "Where Did the Money Go" to argue FTX was financially solvent at its collapse, and his motion for a new trial was denied. He insists the roughly $8 billion in lost customer funds stemmed from accidental accounting errors, not intentional fraud, and notes the FTX bankruptcy process has so far returned over $10 billion to victims. He’s also tried to curry favor with Trump: his father runs an X account posting pro-Republican content on SBF’s behalf, and SBF’s interview with Tucker Carlson landed him in solitary confinement for a period. In his daily prison life, SBF has lost about 30 pounds, follows a vegan diet, plays around 6,000 rounds of a pixelated dungeon game each day, teaches chess classes, is obsessed with pickleball, and refuses to join any racial "gangs"—choosing to remain independent. A former inmate told media SBF has helped fellow incarcerated people prepare legal documents, is well-liked among peers, and is described as a "counterintuitively peaceful person." His greatest fear isn’t the lengthy prison sentence itself: he worries that during his extended time behind bars, his brain will "train itself to only think about finding Oreos," losing the ability to think clearly or influence events on the outside.