Crypto: Sam Bankman-Fried Appeals to the Supreme Court

Sam Bankman-Fried is now taking the FTX case to the highest court in the United States. The former head of the crypto exchange is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn his conviction and a forfeiture order worth nearly $11 billion. Sentenced to 25 years in prison after being found guilty on seven counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering, SBF is seeking a new trial. His main argument is that the defense was prevented from showing that FTX ultimately had enough assets to repay its customers.

Crypto: SBF seeks to reopen the FTX trial

The petition comes more than three months after another legal defeat. On June 12, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld his conviction, 25-year sentence and forfeiture of approximately $11 billion in full.

The collapse of FTX remains one of the episodes that has had the greatest impact on the sector’s recent history. Bref Crypto included it among the major mistakes of the 2021–2024 Bitcoin cycle, notably as a reminder of the risk of leaving assets on a centralized platform for an extended period.

This time, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers are directly challenging the way certain pieces of evidence were presented to the jury.

They argue that the court allowed prosecutors to focus on the billions of dollars missing at the time of the collapse, while preventing SBF from presenting certain evidence intended to show that FTX and Alameda were illiquid rather than insolvent and had assets capable of covering the losses over time. Repayments made since the bankruptcy therefore play a central role in his new strategy.

Repaying customers may not be enough

The argument is nevertheless legally difficult.

In its June decision, the Court of Appeals relied in particular on Kousisis v. United States, a Supreme Court ruling issued in 2025. That precedent holds that wire fraud may be established even when the perpetrator did not necessarily intend to cause a final net economic loss.

In other words, repaying money later does not automatically erase a fraud committed earlier.

The Court of Appeals was particularly firm. It found that the evidence presented at trial established that Bankman-Fried had used customer funds while publicly claiming that they were safe. Read the Second Circuit’s decision

It is precisely this dependence on an intermediary that Bref Crypto also examines in its report on centralization and decentralization in the crypto market. FTX showed that a balance displayed on an exchange does not guarantee that the corresponding assets remain actually available.

SBF is nevertheless attempting to turn the question around: if customers ultimately recovered their money with interest, to what extent should the jury have been able to take that reality into account when assessing the losses alleged at trial?

The $11 billion forfeiture also challenged

The second front directly concerns the money.

Bankman-Fried argues that the approximately $11 billion forfeiture order violates the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits excessive fines. The Court of Appeals had already rejected that argument and found the forfeiture constitutional. (Justia Law)

The Supreme Court is not required to hear the case. SBF is asking it to grant a writ of certiorari, the procedure through which the justices agree to review a decision issued by a lower court.

That is the first battle.

Before attempting to win a new trial, Bankman-Fried must persuade the Supreme Court that the case raises a sufficiently important legal question for it to agree simply to hear the matter.

The bar is high.

The case comes as the U.S. justice system pursues an increasing number of major proceedings in the sector, as recently illustrated by the conviction in a $24 million crypto Ponzi scheme.

For SBF, the strategy is now clear: turn the repayment of FTX creditors into a legal argument capable of challenging how the losses were presented at his trial.

Customers are gradually recovering their funds. His conviction, however, remains intact for now.