Sam Bankman-Fried is due for his sentencing over the FTX scam

The ex-crypto tycoon, Sam Bankman-Fried, will be sentenced Thursday for stealing $8 billion from customers of the collapsed FTX exchange he created.

The 32-year-old Bankman-Fried could spend decades behind bars after a jury convicted him in November of seven counts of conspiracy and fraud. His sentence is scheduled to begin before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT).

The hearing will be the climax of Bankman-Fried's fall from prominence as a prominent political donor and ultra-wealthy cryptocurrency entrepreneur to the largest victory U.S. authorities have seen thus far in their campaign against misbehavior in digital asset markets.

Though the statute allows for a maximum sentence of 110 years, he will probably get less. The prosecution is requesting a 40–50 year prison term for what they claim to be one of the largest financial scams in American history.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan, which prosecuted Bankman-Fried in December 2022, stated in a sentencing statement dated March 15 that Bankman-Fried's life in recent years has been one of unrivaled avarice and arrogance; of ambition and rationalization; and of embracing risk and gambling repeatedly with other people's money.

Kaplan was urged to sentence Bankman-Fried to far less time by his defense attorney, Marc Mukasey, who contended that a sentence of less than 5-1/4 years would be appropriate.

According to Mukasey, Bankman-Fried made a concerted effort to retrieve money following the collapse of the exchange in November 2022 and predicted that FTX customers would probably be made whole through the bankruptcy process.