Polymarket bettors have now tipped a 12% chance that former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried will be pardoned this year, after Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao was let off the hook this week.
Polymarket odds for “Who will Trump pardon in 2025” saw SBF’s odds rise from 5.6% to 12% in 12 hours, with more than $6.5 million worth of bets placed in that market, including $302,090 for the convicted crypto fraudster.
Another market on whether SBF will be “Released from custody in 2025” rose from 4.3% to 19.1% before falling back to 15.5%.
While SBF has filed an appeal to reduce his 25-year sentence, it is unlikely that there would be any significant developments before the end of the year, meaning a pardon from Trump is likely his only realistic path to release before January.
However, CZ’s pardon has naturally sparked debate over whether SBF deserves similar treatment, with many saying it should not.
Four months vs 25 years isn’t comparable, industry pundits say
Many compared the severity of their crimes, noting that CZ violated US anti-money laundering laws by allowing illicit funds to pass through Binance, while SBF was convicted of fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering for misappropriating several billion dollars worth of customer funds.
CZ was handed a four-month sentence, while SBF was slapped with a 25-year prison sentence last year.
Crypto lawyer Jake Chervinsky said he would be “truly shocked” if the Trump administration pardoned SBF, pointing out that SBF was a “Democratic mega-donor before FTX suddenly collapsed in November 2022.
“His name is half punch line half curse word in DC. Not a single serious person wants this.”
Related: Trump on CZ pardon: I’m told ‘what he did is not even a crime’
Sasha Hodder, the founder of crypto law firm Hodder Law, said the severity of CZ’s crime was nowhere near the scale of SBF’s or former Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon:
“Unlike SBF or Do Kwon, CZ wasn’t accused of stealing user funds or defrauding customers. Binance operated as a real exchange. Withdrawals always worked. His “crime” was compliance-related, not criminal in the moral sense.”
In reference to the pardon, Trump said he was told what CZ did was “not even a crime” and that he was “persecuted by the Biden administration.”
CZ is a key backer of the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto platform.
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