Sam Bankman-Fried's Token Spiked After the Jailed FTX Founder Tweeted for the First Time in 2 Years

Bankman-Fried, who was convicted on seven different counts of fraud and conspiracy in November 2023, is serving out a 25-year prison sentence.

Sam Bankman-Fried's X (formerly Twitter) account posted a 10-tweet thread about layoffs on Monday night, referencing Elon Musk's push to have federal employees email their work activities from the past week or risk resignations.

Bankman-Fried, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence for fraud and conspiracy, does not have direct access to email or social media, but can send messages through the Corrlinks system, which lets prisoners in the U.S. communicate with others, a person familiar confirmed.

It was not immediately clear who might be posting the tweets on Bankman-Fried's behalf.

The token associated with FTX, FTT, briefly spiked from roughly $1.55 to $2.07 after his tweets before falling back to around $1.78, according to CoinGecko.

The seven-count indictment against Bankman-Fried included conspiracy to commit wire fraud on customers, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, wire fraud on customers, commodities fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws and securities fraud. He was found guilty on all seven counts.

Bankman-Fried's tweets referenced layoffs and detailed circumstances that might cause an employer to fire employees.

"It isn’t the employee’s fault, when that happens," his thread began. "It isn’t their fault if their employer doesn’t really know what to do with them, or doesn’t really have anyone to effectively manage them."

"It isn’t their fault if internal politics lead their department to lose its way."

After Bankman-Fried's tweets, another X account claiming without evidence to be him linked a contract address, claiming he received a pardon from Trump and now works for DOGE, the government entity that may or may not be led by Elon Musk. The linked token saw some immediate trading volume, according to on-chain data. The new, seemingly fake account has a label saying "it is a government or multilateral organization account," suggesting a government agency account may have been compromised and renamed.

Read more: Private Jets, Political Cash Among $1B in Sam Bankman-Fried's Forfeited Assets: Court

UPDATE (Feb. 25, 2025, 04:05 UTC): Adds information about SBF_DOGE account.