FTX

Sam Bankman-Fried’s 25-year sentence turned FTX coverage from a 2022 collapse story into a long-running reckoning over fraud, bankruptcy and appeals.

Who they are

FTX was a crypto exchange whose 2022 collapse became a defining industry failure, tying its coverage to alleged customer-fund diversion to affiliated trading firm Alameda Research, the criminal case against co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried, and an unusually complex bankruptcy.

The recent arc

Coverage reached its clear peak in 2022Q4 as FTX halted withdrawals, Binance signed a non-binding proposal to acquire FTX.com amid its liquidity crisis, the Bahamas regulator disputed an FTX statement on local withdrawals, and more than $600 million in crypto left company wallets in a reported hack. The story then shifted from a fast-moving corporate failure to prosecution and court-supervised unwinding: the SEC alleged Bankman-Fried had concealed the diversion of customer funds to Alameda, while former executives including Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang and Nishad Singh became central to the legal fallout.

The next major coverage resurgence came with Bankman-Fried’s conviction in late 2023 and his 25-year sentence in March 2024. More recently, reporting has centered on the afterlife of that case rather than a revived exchange: FTX prepared an initial creditor payment from cash collected in bankruptcy, disputes included Three Arrows Capital’s enlarged claim, and 2026 headlines followed Bankman-Fried’s unsuccessful new-trial efforts, pardon application and failed bid to overturn his conviction. Caroline Ellison’s release after roughly 14 months added another closing-stage legal development.

The tension

The central tension is between FTX’s collapse as an exchange failure and the allegation that it was enabled by intertwined control with Alameda Research. Binance figured prominently at the point of crisis through its proposed, ultimately conditional rescue, while subsequent coverage has tested whether bankruptcy recoveries, creditor claims and criminal accountability can repair damage from weak records and corporate controls.

Why it matters

FTX remains a reference point for crypto-market stress and governance risk, including comparisons to Coinbase’s post-FTX performance. If creditor distributions and appeals continue to dominate, the case will matter less as a functioning-company narrative than as a test of how much value can be recovered, and how convincingly the legal system can resolve accountability, after a major crypto intermediary fails; the remaining uncertainty is in claims resolution and the durability of the convictions.

Related: Sam Bankman-Fried · Alameda · Binance · Alameda Research · A US judge sentences Sam Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison for steal