- Polymarket’s Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) pardon probability surged from ~5.6 % to 16%, a day after President Trump showed CZ clemency.
- SBF, was convicted in March and has been sentenced to 25 years on multiple charges.
- Unlike CZ, SBF’s crimes are far more serious, making any pardon a much tougher political and legal gamble.
Prediction markets have lit up following the recent pardon of Binance’s Changpeng Zhao aka CZ on Polymarket. In the latest, the probability that former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) will receive a presidential pardon has spiked dramatically. The odds have jumped from around 5.6% to 16% within hours.
What sparked the surge?
The catalyst was President Donald Trump’s pardon of CZ on Thursday, which many traders interpreted as signaling a broader clemency shift. When CZ was pardoned, markets quickly re-priced the possibility that SBF could be next in line. Polymarket’s “Who will Trump pardon in 2025” contract saw renewed activity almost immediately. Parallely, a related market on whether ‘SBF would be released from custody in 2025” climbed from 4.3% to 19.1% before later settling near 15.5%.
However, analysts warn that SBF’s legal baggage, makes a presidential pardon much more heavier to lift than CZ’s comparatively narrower charges.
Newsletter
Get weekly updates on the newest crypto stories, case studies and tips right in your mailbox.
SBF’s case and clemency prospects
Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted in 2024 of fraud, conspiracy, and mismanagement of customer funds through the collapse of FTX. This culminated in a 25-year prison sentence. His legal team has filed multiple appeals since, one of which is likely to be heard on November 4, 2025. Very few expect major developments before this year’s end, making prospects of a presidential pardon the only feasible route for early release in 2025.
CZ faced just four months imprisonment for Anti money laundering violations and was charged with breaking financial rules, like the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act, back in April 2023
President Trump’s pardon of Changpeng Zhao is his second, after he pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who ran the Silk Road marketplace. Ulbricht was given a life sentence in 2015 for running a drug operation that used anonymous Bitcoin payments. Ulbricht’s pardon was part of a broader wave of executive actions Trump too during his first few days in office.
Supporters hailed it as a long-overdue correction of an overly harsh sentence, while critics questioned the message it sent about accountability in tech-driven crime.
