Today, almost the entire cryptocurrency community celebrated the announcement of Sam Bankman-Fried’s prison. The founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX was arrested in the Bahamas on Tuesday, December 12.
The arrest was done at the request of the United States government, and the information was released by the Caribbean Attorney General’s Office.
The news was celebrated by a good portion of the cryptocurrency community who blames SBF for the market collapse caused by his company. However, a specific community has even more reason to celebrate.
Those who invested in a specific token aimed at betting if SBF went to prison or not, are celebrating even more.
On December 3rd, CryptoCoinOpps reported on a ‘prediction token‘ created where its investors “bet” on the legal outcome of SBF.
As a result of the arrest, the token, “Sam Bankman-Fried Prison” (SBFP), skyrocketed just minutes following the confirmation of SBF’s imprisonment. SBFP went from $0.049 to $0.19 in the span of five minutes, according to CoinMarketCap.
Today, the coin has seen market correction, falling to $0.10 in value. However, that’s still a massive gain with trading volumes of the coin increasing to nearly US$150,000 in the last 24 hours.
The developers claim on their website that they would “celebrate” Bankman-Fried’s arrest by burning half of the supply. In theory, this would “reward” its holders with a drastic increase in value.
It is unclear if this surge is the outcome of token burn, or if it is just a result of massive inflow due to the arrest. However, given the speed at which the token went up, it is likely the latter.
For the SBFP token holders to win ultimately, Bankman-Fried must be in jail by the bet’s deadline — January 3rd, 2024.
SBF Set To Be Extradited
Despite being arrested by the Royal Bahamas Police, SBF is likely to be extradited to the U.S. soon.
Bankman-Fried’s arrest happened after a formal request from the American government. The New York Times reports that American prosecutors already filed criminal charges against the disgraced CEO.
“As a result of the notification received and the material provided therewith, it was deemed appropriate for the Attorney General to seek SBF’s arrest and hold him in custody pursuant to our nation’s Extradition Act.“
Bankman-Fried is accused of wire and securities fraud, conspiracy to conduct wire and securities fraud, and money laundering.
As reported previously, both the Bahamas and the U.S. already announced criminal investigations against the former CEO.
