Sam Bankman-Fried, a US entrepreneur and crypto king, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in defrauding users of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

Justice Lewis Kaplan of a US District Court in lower Manhattan described the defense argument as misleading, logically flawed, and speculative.

Kaplan claimed Bankman-Fried obstructed justice and tampered with witnesses while mounting his defense, which he considered in his sentencing decision.

After a two-hour hearing, Justice Lewis Kaplan stated that Bankman-Fried was aware of the criminal nature of his actions and regretted making a terrible wager on his chances of being discovered.

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Bankman-Fried, dressed in a beige jailhouse jumpsuit, apologized, saying he had taken “selfish” judgments while managing FTX and “threw it all away.”

“It haunts me every day,” he admitted in a statement. “There are a lot of mistakes that I made.”

Bankman-Fried, on the other hand, informed the court that when FTX collapsed, it had the means to refund customers.

Prosecutors claim Bankman-Fried stole more than $10 billion (£7.9 billion) from unknowing consumers in “one of the biggest financial frauds” in US history.

Before going bankrupt in 2022, FTX was valued at $32 billion, while SBF built a public image that enticed celebrities, politicians, and business titans.

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Prosecutors sought up to 50 years, but Bankman-Fried’s legal team argued for no more than six and a half years.

He was convicted of seven criminal counts in November and has been incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn ever since.

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