Sam Bankman-Fried, the former FTX founder now imprisoned for a massive financial fraud, has sparked a speculative frenzy with his presidential pardon application. While odds are slim, traders jumped at the news, driving FTT, the native token of the defunct exchange, up over 50%, peaking at $0.35 after languishing at an all-time low just days before.

According to CryptoSlate, FTT still holds no real utility, but that hasn't stopped market participants from treating it as a potential proxy for Bankman-Fried's fate. The trading volume for the asset spiked by more than 600%, reaching over $16 million, with around 30% of this activity on Binance.

This surge remains speculative. A pardon wouldn't revive FTX or its token's usefulness. It would merely affect Bankman-Fried personally, as the fundamental issues of misappropriation and fraud still overshadow any hope of recovery. His legal maneuver comes despite President Trump's repeated refusals to grant a pardon. Trump has shown leniency toward other crypto figures, but the scale and nature of Bankman-Fried’s crimes make clemency a tough sell. The political and financial communities largely agree that his actions were a straightforward embezzlement scheme.

Bankman-Fried continues to argue that FTX was misunderstood as insolvent, claiming recoveries could have covered customer losses. Former executives, however, have dismissed these claims, reaffirming the prosecution's narrative that customer funds were misused. Bankman-Fried was sentenced in March 2024 after a jury found him guilty of multiple serious charges, including wire fraud and money laundering.

More from Coin Times

MARKETS

Court Halts Trump's $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee — A Policy Stumbles

A federal judge halts Trump's $100,000 H-1B visa fee, citing constitutional violations.

The government argued that FTX customer deposits were secretly routed to Alameda Research and used for trading losses, investments, real estate purchases, political donations, and debt repayments. Notably, former executives, including Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, and Nishad Singh, who cooperated with US prosecutors, testified against Bankman-Fried. Ryne Miller, FTX’s former general counsel, has also rejected Bankman-Fried’s post-conviction solvency claims.

Traders on the blockchain-based prediction market Polymarket are currently pricing in only an 8% probability that Bankman-Fried will receive a presidential pardon by the end of the year. Despite the aggressive lobbying effort, the political reality facing Bankman-Fried is bleak. President Trump explicitly ruled out clemency for the FTX founder during a January 2026 interview with The New York Times, a stance the White House has since maintained.

While Trump has been willing to use his executive power to pardon other prominent crypto figures, including a high-profile October 2025 pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, the political calculus surrounding Bankman-Fried is fundamentally different. Those previous pardons were largely framed around correcting regulatory overreach, anti-money laundering technicalities, or broader criminal justice reform.

Bankman-Fried’s case, by contrast, is viewed universally as a straightforward, multi-billion-dollar embezzlement scheme that financially devastated millions of everyday retail investors. Even among pro-crypto Republicans on Capitol Hill, the pardon push has been met with hostility. Senator Bernie Moreno stated, "The guy shouldn’t be pardoned. The guy should go to jail for a long, long time."

This view is also shared by several crypto enthusiasts, with one industry analyst saying, "Pardoning SBF doesn’t release one fraudster, it just green-lights the next thousand. The message becomes: steal billions, do a MAGA rebrand from prison, walk free." So, while FTT's recent spike is noteworthy, it underscores a market often driven by sentiment rather than substance. The question remains: can speculation sustain when reality refuses to budge?