CNBC’s Mad Money host Jim Cramer ignited speculation in the crypto space on March 29 with an X post stating, “Is SBF the next to see daylight?”
His remark triggered widespread debate about the likelihood of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) receiving a presidential pardon, as the cryptocurrency community remains divided over recent clemency decisions by former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Speculation about who might be next is growing as the cryptocurrency community is divided over Trump’s pardons. Names like Roger Ver, SBF, and CZ are dividing the prediction markets.
Trump’s pardoning spree has led to heightened discussions within cryptocurrency circles with Polymarket, a crypto-based prediction platform, hosting bets on who might be next.
Trump pardons cryptocurrency tycoons who had prior criminal convictions
The cryptocurrency community on the Polymarket market, where voters can wager on potential future occurrences of real-life events, is divided among competitors. The “Who Will Trump Pardon in the First 100 Days?” event has seen notable names emerge, including Roger Ver, Sam Bankman-Fried, and Binance’s former CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ).
Currently, the odds of SBF being pardoned stand at just 3%, while Roger Ver, a cryptocurrency tycoon who says he was the first investor in Bitcoin, has 4% of the vote.
Ver, accused of avoiding $50 million in taxes, claimed that on March 2, he was politically targeted for spreading cryptocurrency.
Changpeng Zhao, well known as CZ, Binance’s co-founder and former CEO, has about 8% of the votes in the polymarket on the chance to obtain Trump’s pardon.
In April 2024, CZ was sentenced to four months imprisonment after pleading guilty to violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws.
CZ was accused of violating companies’ rules to establish an appropriate anti-money laundering program, which allowed Binance to handle transactions involving the proceeds of illegal activity.
On March 27, Trump pardoned three co-founders of the global cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, Samuel Reed, Benjamin Delo, and Arthur Hayes, the former CEO of BitMEX. This was after they acknowledged in court that they had violated the Bank Secrecy Act more than three months ago.
According to the charges, they allowed their business to operate without oversight and failed to establish know-your-customer and anti-money laundering procedures.
In addition, apart from three co-founders of BitMEX, on January 21, President Donald Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who the FBI took into custody and seized his laptop on October 1, 2013, one day after becoming the 47th President of the U.S.
It was shortly after, in 2015, a judge found him guilty of money laundering, computer hacking, and drug trafficking on the dark web site The Silk Road and sentenced him to life in prison.
SBF makes last-ditch effort to secure a Trump pardon for FTX fraud
Following his conviction for fraud related to the collapse of FTX, SBF’s family and supporters initially sought to prevent his sentencing. However, after receiving a 25-year prison term, Bankman-Fried has reportedly shifted strategies and is now pursuing a presidential pardon.
According to reports, Bankman-Fried consulted a lawyer with ties to the president in addition to Carlson, who is close to Trump.
A crypto lobbyist, who spoke while keeping the identity concealed because they were not permitted to comment publicly, responded, “zero,” when asked about the likelihood that Bankman-Fried’s efforts would succeed.
On the other hand, several cryptocurrency lobbyists say that due to Trump’s growing connections to the crypto sector and his readiness to freely exercise his pardoning authority, there is still a chance that Bankman-Fried’s plan to get Trump to pardon him will succeed.
Trump’s latest moves, including his pardon of Ulbricht and support for cryptocurrency initiatives during his campaign, have reinforced speculation that further crypto-related clemencies could be on the horizon.
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