Senate Says a Flat “No” to Any Pardon for FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried
Every senator agreed FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried should never get clemency — a symbolic vote that says a lot about crypto's trust problem.
The U.S. Senate has sent an unmistakable message to the crypto world: Sam Bankman-Fried is never getting a pardon, at least not with lawmakers’ blessing. On Wednesday, senators unanimously approved a resolution stating the disgraced FTX founder should “under no circumstances” receive a presidential pardon or sentence commutation. It’s not a law, and it doesn’t bind the White House — but the fact that not a single senator objected says something about how deep the FTX wound still runs.
The measure passed by “unanimous consent,” a fast-track procedure that only works if every senator in the chamber agrees not to block it. That’s a notably strong show of bipartisan agreement in a body that rarely agrees on much these days.
Who pushed this through, and why
The resolution was led by Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican, and Senator Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat. Both hold the top spots — Republican and Democrat, respectively — on the Senate Banking Committee’s digital assets subcommittee, meaning they’re the two lawmakers most directly focused on crypto policy in the chamber.
Lummis is widely seen as crypto’s biggest champion in Congress, having spent years pushing legislation the industry has wanted. That makes her decision to lead an effort keeping one of crypto’s most notorious figures behind bars all the more notable. The pair first introduced the measure back on June 17.
“He had his day in court,” Lummis said when introducing the resolution. Gallego’s statement was even blunter: “Keep him locked up.”
A quick reminder of what SBF actually did
For anyone who’s tuned out of the FTX saga since it dominated headlines, here’s the short version: a jury convicted Bankman-Fried in November 2023 on seven criminal counts connected to FTX’s implosion. Prosecutors described the case as one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history, with American customers losing more than $8 billion when the exchange collapsed. Bankman-Fried isn’t due for release until around 2044.
The Senate’s resolution came after Bankman-Fried himself reportedly asked for clemency. President Donald Trump said back in January that he had no plans to pardon Bankman-Fried, even though he has granted clemency to other high-profile figures tied to crypto’s more colorful history — including Binance founder Changpeng Zhao and Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht.
Why this matters if you hold crypto
This resolution won’t move any coin prices and doesn’t change Bankman-Fried’s legal situation — it’s nonbinding, meaning it carries no actual legal force and can’t stop a pardon if Trump ever changed his mind. But it does matter for a quieter reason: trust.
Crypto has spent the past few years trying to convince regulators, banks, and everyday savers that it’s not just a playground for fraudsters. Every time a major FTX-related figure gets pardoned or let off easy, it reinforces the old stereotype that crypto insiders play by different rules. A unanimous Senate vote saying “not this one, not ever” is a small but symbolic signal that lawmakers — including crypto’s biggest ally in Congress — want accountability to actually mean something in this industry, not just for regular investors but for the people who ran the platforms holding their money.
For everyday holders, none of this changes what’s in your wallet today. But it’s a reminder that the fallout from FTX’s collapse is still shaping how Washington treats crypto, and that the industry’s credibility is still being rebuilt one headline at a time.
Read more: Two Big Banks Just Warned Circle’s USDC Profit Machine Is Under Threat
