Crypto's Billion Dollar Zombies | SBF Gets 25 Years

In the bizarro world of digital assets, these rich do-nothing blockchains need not worry about the kinds of things that keep traditional companies on their toes. There are no shareholders or regulators asking for financial statements, and token short-selling is relatively difficult. So long as there is an ample supply of speculators willing to trade their coins, they will continue to roam the digital landscape.

Forbes identified 20 functional zombies with a combined market value of $116 billion and coffers brimming with millions…See the full list here.

New York District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Bankman-Fried to forfeit $11 billion and asked that federal prison officials assign him to a medium-security facility, ideally near his home in the San Francisco Bay Area, citing Bankman-Fried’s low risk for violence and autism.

Weighing against the defendant was a lack of remorse, according to the judge. "He knew it was wrong," Reuters quoted Kaplan as saying. "He knew it was criminal. He regrets that he made a very bad bet about the likelihood of getting caught. But he is not going to admit a thing, as is his right."

Current FTX CEO John J. Ray III said in a filing to the judge that customers are expected to be repaid the value of their claims on the date the exchange filed for bankruptcy protection. Kaplan said that in determining the sentence, he wasn’t weighing whether customers would get their money back: “A thief who takes his loot to Las Vegas and successfully bets the stolen money is not entitled to a discount on the sentence.”

Bankman-Fried’s lawyers have said the former crypto king plans to appeal the conviction.

The agency sued Coinbase in June, saying the firm facilitated the trading of at least 13 crypto tokens that should have been registered as securities and was operating as an unregistered securities exchange, broker and clearing agency. Coinbase has argued that the regulator has largely declined to provide a clear rule book and instead opted for a regulation-by-enforcement approach.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla allowed most of the lawsuit to proceed but dismissed the SEC's claim that Coinbase’s digital wallet application meant it was acting as an unregistered broker. The parties have until April 19 to submit a case management plan to the court.