Polymarket bets climb on potential SBF clemency after CZ’s pardon
Following yesterday’s pardon of Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the crypto market immediately shifted to the next big question: will Sam Bankman‑Fried (SBF) get leniency?
The pardon of Binance’s founder has become a powerful trigger for speculation not only on X but also on prediction markets. On Polymarket the odds of an SBF pardon in 2025 jumped from nearly 5.6% to 12–17% within hours; Kalshi showed a move toward around16%.
Social media is filled with new memes about SBF and CZ. Source: X
Notably, the same Polymarket board also hosts bets on potential clemency for Julian Assange and Roger Ver. Yet participants increasingly view Sam Bankman‑Fried as the most likely next recipient of a White House favor. Across the crypto community his name surfaces more and more often, especially after it became clear President Trump is prepared to take decisive steps toward high‑profile crypto defendants such as Ross Ulbricht and CZ.
Talk of a potential release for SBF isn’t baseless. First, Bankman‑Fried is actively pursuing an early way out. In late winter 2025, he gave a prison interview that amounted to a veiled appeal to Trump’s White House, promoting the narrative that his case is the product of “incredibly destructive” politicization under the Biden administration. He also linked his sentence to broader criticism of Judge Lewis Kaplan, a figure familiar to Trump himself.
When that appeal didn’t land, he doubled down in October via an intermediary, publishing a message that more openly framed his arrest as political retribution.
Second, SBF sits within a network of political and advocacy ties. His mother, Stanford law professor Barbara Fried, co-founded the donor network Mind the Gap and has publicly supported criminal‑justice reform. Those efforts align with organizations pushing for more proportionate sentencing, such as Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM). In the current debate over clemency, such actors can help shape public pressure.
Finally, there is a concrete deadline: SBF’s appeal is slated for early November. Bankman‑Fried’s lawyers plan to argue procedural errors and a misreading of FTX’s solvency at the time of the collapse.
In the coming weeks, we’ll see whether SBF’s case moves from prediction‑market chatter to real clemency policy. Trump’s courtship of crypto‑minded voters now looks clearer. But unlike CZ, SBF carries far greater reputational risk.
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