FTX’s native token, FTT is bleeding again, and this time, the trigger is a courtroom, not a market crash.
FTT dropped sharply on Friday after Reuters reported that Sam Bankman-Fried has lost his bid to overturn his federal fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence.
JUST IN: Sam Bankman-Fried loses bid to overturn fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence, Reuters reports.
— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) June 12, 2026
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld every element of the original 2024 verdict, rejecting all arguments put forward by his legal team. Crypto watchers flagged the sell-off in real time, noting that FTT remains uniquely sensitive to any headline carrying SBF’s name, even years after the exchange ceased to exist.
It is a reminder that legacy tokens carry legacy risk. For FTT, that risk has a face, a name, and now a confirmed prison sentence.
Second Circuit Court Rejects Every Claim from SBF’s Legal Team
The appellate ruling leaves no ambiguity. The Second Circuit reviewed the full scope of SBF’s appeal and declined to overturn any aspect of the original conviction. His legal team had mounted several challenges to the verdict, but the court dismissed them in their entirety, affirming that Sam Bankman-Fried is criminally liable for the collapse of FTX and its affiliated trading arm, Alameda Research.
The 25-year sentence stands. For the 33-year-old former billionaire, it means spending the bulk of his adult life behind bars, a staggering fall from a figure who, barely three years ago, was testifying before U.S. Senate committees and donating hundreds of millions to political campaigns.
The ruling also carries significant weight beyond SBF himself. It provides definitive legal closure to the most consequential insolvency event in the history of the crypto industry, a collapse that wiped out roughly $11 billion in customer funds and triggered a market-wide contagion that accelerated the 2022 bear cycle.
Pardon Request Filed Just Four Days Earlier
What makes the timing of the ruling particularly striking is what came just before it. Only four days prior to the court’s decision, SBF had filed a formal pardon request directed at President Donald Trump, a move that drew immediate attention and no small amount of skepticism across the crypto community.
The pardon bid went nowhere, and now the appeal has failed too. SBF’s legal options are narrowing fast. With both avenues closed, the path to an early release is looking increasingly remote, and Friday’s ruling only reinforces that trajectory.
Whether the pardon request was a genuine legal strategy or a final public-facing move ahead of the appeal outcome, it did not change anything. The court’s decision came down as scheduled and came down hard.
What the $11 Billion FTX Collapse Actually Cost the Industry
To understand why this ruling matters beyond one man’s prison term, it helps to revisit what FTX’s collapse actually looked like at ground level.
When FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022, it left behind a $11 billion hole in customer funds, money that had been misappropriated, commingled, and funneled into Alameda Research’s trading operations without customer knowledge or consent.
Retail users, institutional investors, and even venture-backed funds lost access to their holdings overnight. Several crypto firms that had exposure to FTX or Alameda were forced into their own liquidity crises in the weeks that followed.
đ¨ $FTT IS DUMPING HARD!
After Reuters reported that Sam Bankman-Fried lost his bid to overturn his fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence.
A reminder that even years after the FTX collapse, SBF headlines can still move the token. pic.twitter.com/SHwrNxnPDP
— Wise Advice (@wiseadvicesumit) June 12, 2026
The ripple effects reshaped how regulators globally approached crypto oversight. It accelerated legislative efforts in the U.S., the EU, and across Asia to bring centralized exchanges under formal regulatory frameworks. The collapse did not kill crypto, but it permanently altered the conversation around custodial risk, proof of reserves, and the dangers of opaque exchange balance sheets.
SBF’s conviction, and now the affirmation of that conviction on appeal, closes the legal chapter of a story that reshaped an entire industry.
Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services.
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