Sam Bankman-Fried Tweets From Prison, Briefly Spiking FTX Token FTT

The token associated with defunct crypto exchange FTX surged briefly Monday night after Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and onetime CEO of the platform tweeted

The token associated with defunct crypto exchange FTX surged briefly Monday night after Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and onetime CEO of the platform, tweeted for the first time in two 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. He's currently detained in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn as his lawyers work through an appeal of his conviction. Still, his account on X (formerly Twitter) posted a 10-tweet thread about layoffs, seemingly referencing Elon Musk's push to have federal employees email their work activities from the past week or risk resignations.

"I have a lot of sympathy for [government] employees: I, too, have not checked my email for the past few (hundred) days," his thread began. FTT, the token associated with FTX, briefly spiked from roughly $1.55 to $2.07 after his tweets before falling back to around $1.78, according to CoinGecko.

Bankman-Fried does not have direct access to sites like X or email, 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.

Over the weekend, Musk, who according to court documents is a special government employee, tweeted that federal employees would have to tell the Office of Personnel and Management what they did last week, with a non-response being considered a resignation. While some federal agency heads or other leaders told their employees not to respond, others said their employees should reply.

It's another step in Musk's efforts to lay off broad swaths of the federal workforce at the behest of U.S. President Donald Trump.

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. 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," the thread said.

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 blue checkmark, despite not being verified by X.

Meanwhile, another token, SAM, also surged briefly after Bankman-Fried's tweets. The token, which was created in his honor, saw its price briefly spike from around $1.13 to $1.33 before falling back to around $1.18, according to CoinGecko.

Bankman-Fried's tweets come as his legal team continues to work through an appeal of his fraud and conspiracy conviction, which carries a maximum sentence of 115 years in prison. He was found guilty of defrauding customers of FTX and misusing their funds, lying to lenders about Alameda Research's exposure to FTX and lying to a Commodities Futures Trading Commission official about FTX's financial condition.

Bankman-Fried, who was once valued at tens of billions of dollars, has largely remained in custody since his December 2022 arrest in the Bahamas, where FTX was headquartered. He was extradited to the U.S. in late December 2022 and has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

His trial began in March 2023 and included testimony from several former FTX and Alameda executives, including Nishad Singh, Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang. Prosecutors also called several FTX customers and employees to the stand to describe the impact of the exchange's collapse on their finances and careers.

Bankman-Fried's defense largely centered on his claims that he was not aware of the fraud that was occurring at FTX and Alameda and that he relied on Ellison and Wang to manage the day-to-day operations of the companies. He also claimed that he was not fully aware of the legal obligations that applied to FTX and Alameda.

In the end, the jury found Bankman-Fried guilty on seven different counts of fraud and conspiracy, including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws.

He was acquitted on a single count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. Prosecutors had dropped several other charges against him prior to the trial.

Bankman-Fried is scheduled to be sentenced