Sam Bankman-Fried, the 34-year-old founder of the collapsed FTX cryptocurrency exchange, has filed a formal request for a presidential pardon with the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Pardon Attorney, according to DOJ records confirmed by CNBC, Bloomberg, and TechCrunch.

He is two years into a 25-year federal prison sentence.

The filing is listed as a "pardon after completion of sentence" — meaning Bankman-Fried is NOT asking Trump to let him out early. He's asking for his conviction to be legally erased once he serves his full term. He has separately filed an appeal of the underlying sentence, and has consistently claimed innocence.

What He Actually Did

Bankman-Fried was convicted in 2023 on multiple counts of fraud and money laundering. The jury found he misused billions of dollars in customer funds at FTX — money that belonged to ordinary people who trusted the exchange — and funneled it into personal investments and to cover debts at his affiliated trading firm, Alameda Research.

FTX collapsed in November 2022. Customers lost access to their funds. The damage ran into the billions.

A federal jury convicted him. A federal judge sentenced him to 25 years.

Trump's Track Record on Pardons — and His Stated Position on SBF

This application lands in the context of an administration that has used the pardon power aggressively. According to CNBC, Trump has issued more than 1,400 pardons and commutations during his second term — compared to just 238 in his entire first term. The bulk of those were 1,200+ January 6-related cases, but according to an NBC News analysis cited by TechCrunch, more than half of individual pardons went to people convicted of white-collar crimes — including money laundering, bank fraud, and wire fraud.

But Trump told The New York Times in January 2026 that he has "no intention of pardoning" Bankman-Fried specifically. The White House declined to comment when asked about this application by CNBC and BBC.

Presidential statements of intent and actual presidential actions don't always match. But that quote is on the record.

The Process — and Why It's Unusual

According to Bloomberg, cited by TechCrunch, very few people Trump has pardoned actually filed the official DOJ application. Most pardons in this administration have come through direct political channels — not formal bureaucratic paperwork.

Bankman-Fried going through official channels suggests either his legal team is playing it straight, or that he lacks the political connections to go the back-channel route. Probably both.

The exact filing date is unclear. DOJ records show it was submitted in 2026 and is currently pending.

The Political Context

Bankman-Fried donated heavily to Democratic causes before his arrest — reportedly over $40 million in the 2022 election cycle — and cultivated relationships with regulators and politicians across Washington. His political identity pre-arrest was firmly progressive. The irony of him seeking relief from a Republican president he arguably opposed is significant, though it has received limited attention.

Also largely absent from coverage: the victims. FTX customers who lost money have been going through a claims process for years. A pardon doesn't give them their money back. It just tells Bankman-Fried — legally — that what he did was forgiven. Those are two very different things.

Where Things Stand

Bankman-Fried is two years into a 25-year sentence. He's asking the president to forgive the conviction once he's done.

Trump publicly said he won't do it. The White House won't even comment. And unlike most people Trump has pardoned, Bankman-Fried apparently doesn't have a direct political pipeline to the Oval Office.

The formal application is filed. The answer, for now, is no.