Sam Bankman-Fried, serving 25 years for the $11 billion FTX fraud, formally submitted a presidential pardon request to the DOJ's Office of the Pardon Attorney. It's a "pardon after completion of sentence" application, which wouldn't release him early but would restore civil rights after he serves the full term. He disclosed the filing in a Fox Business prison interview published Monday. Trump has explicitly rejected pardoning SBF twice in 2026. SBF's parents, Stanford Law professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, have been working Trump-connected lawyers since early 2025.

1. The Customers Got Made Whole (SBF, Moskowitz, defenders)

FTX paid 118%. Adam Moskowitz, who represented victims, says he wouldn't oppose the pardon. The fraud was real but the harm reversed.

The FTX estate paid roughly 118% of claim values to most customer classes. SBF's argument relies on this number. If customers got made whole, the 25-year sentence is disproportionate to the actual loss. Adam Moskowitz, the attorney who represented hundreds of thousands of FTX victims, told Fox Business he wouldn't oppose a pardon, noting SBF was "one of the first defendants to offer to help out victims."

"After completion of sentence" is really modest. SBF isn't asking to be released. He's asking to have civil rights restored after he serves the full 25 years. It's the textbook clemency mechanism for someone who paid their debt and whose victims were compensated.

2. Customers Got 118% of November 2022 Prices, Not Their Crypto Back (justice advocates, crypto community)

The repayment figure is calculated at the November 2022 lows. The customers got cash valued at the bottom of the crypto crash.

The 118% was calculated at November 2022 crypto prices, when the market was near its lows. Customers got cash based on those values. If you had 1 BTC on FTX worth ~$17K in November 2022, you got ~$17K in cash. That 1 BTC would be worth several times that today. "Customers were made whole" is technically true and materially understated.

Crypto attorney John Deaton called SBF "the Bernie Madoff of Crypto." Any SBF pardon would be "a slap in the face of justice and innocent investors." Dennis Kelleher of Better Markets: "The unmistakable message is, 'crime pays.'" The 25-year sentence was supposed to deter the next crypto fraud, and SBF's recent public alignment with Trump makes the timing look transactional.

3. The Pardon Machinery Is the Story (Bitcoinist, structural)

SBF's parents have been working this since early 2025. Trump has rejected it twice. The lobby is still going.

SBF's parents have been working this since January 2025. Bloomberg first reported the family's outreach to Trump-connected lawyers in January 2025; PYMNTS and CoinDesk tracked it through the year. Barbara Fried's shift from longtime Democratic donor to Trump-orbit lobbyist is itself the political story.

Trump's two public rejections didn't kill the application. The family can keep pursuing through formal channels and lobbying. If your family has Stanford-Law-professor budgets and Trump-orbit connections, you keep the pardon application alive even after the president rejects it twice. That's the pattern Better Markets and Bitcoinist are pointing at.

Where This Lands

SBF says customers got 118% and his sentence is harsh. The other side says 118% of November 2022 prices isn't 118% of what was actually lost, and 25 years was the deterrent. And underneath that, the application is the formal step in a Stanford-Law-professor-backed campaign that hasn't stopped despite two Trump rejections. Does the third rejection hold, or does the lobby grind down to a quieter mechanism?

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