Understanding the Severity of Bankman-Fried's Crimes

I. The Nature, Circumstances, and Seriousness of the Offense Warrant a Very Significant Sentence

The nature and circumstances of the defendant’s crimes are extraordinarily serious. Bankman-Fried implemented, perpetuated, and concealed a multi-billion-dollar fraud scheme that victimized tens of thousands of victims—a fraud in which FTX’s customers and investors, and Alameda’s lenders suffered actual losses of at least $10 billion. For many reasons, the defendant’s serious crimes call for severe punishment: (1) he aggregate losses to tens of thousands of victims worldwide were over $10 billion, with each of the defendant’s frauds—on customers, investors, and lenders—alone involving losses that exceeded the top of the loss table in the Guidelines; (2) the crimes were ongoing, complex, and involved systematic deception over a period of years; (3) the losses suffered by victims were severe and life changing, and had significant collateral consequences to them; (4) the defendant’s criminality was pervasive, as evidenced not just by his crimes of conviction, but by the fact that he committed several other significant crimes while running FTX; (5) as evidenced by his witness tampering and perjury, the defendant did not cease his criminal conduct after being arrested; and (6) at no point has the defendant accepted responsibility for his crimes. Each of these elements of the defendant’s criminal conduct bear on the seriousness of the offense and warrant the imposition of a very severe sentence.

First, the sheer scale of Bankman-Fried’s fraud calls for severe punishment. The amount of loss—at least $10 billion—makes this one of the largest financial frauds of all time. Indeed, there does not appear to have been such a fraud of this magnitude—measured by loss—prosecuted in this country, let alone in this District, since the prosecution of Bernie Madoff. While the Madoff fraud resulted in a larger financial loss to investors, Bankman-Fried’s fraud affected tens of thousands of victims all over the world. There is no fraud that is equivalent in the loss amount attributable to the fraud, the number of victims, and its geographic reach. The fraud on FTX’s customers alone was approximately seven times the top of the loss table in the Guidelines. The fraud on FTX’s investors, likewise, is nearly double the top figure in the loss table. The same is true for the fraud on Alameda’s lenders. Any one of these frauds, based on actual losses alone, would be a basis to impose a sentence at the top of the applicable Guidelines.

And the way in which the losses occurred here are significant. While there have been a few cases where the amount of loss exceeds a billion dollars, in many of those cases the loss stems from lost share value attributable to accounting fraud or other corporate malfeasance. But here, the loss occurred by theft directly from the victims. Every dollar stolen from customers was taken out of their deposits on FTX and went into the defendant’s (or his companies’) pockets. The crimes were personal to the customers, both small and large, to whom the defendant owed a fiduciary duty. The severity of the sentence must reflect the largely unprecedented direct losses that the defendant caused millions of victims, and his wholesale breach of duty further warrants the stiffest of punishments.

Second, the severity of the defendant’s crimes is further amplified by the fact that they were long-running, not the product of a momentary lapse of judgement, and complex and highly orchestrated. Not long after the founding of FTX, the defendant instructed Wang to start giving Alameda special privileges that would allow it to borrow from other customers and incur a negative balance. The defendant began using those special privileges to give Alameda preferential treatment on FTX, all so that Alameda could profit at customers’ expense. And while customers did not realize at the time that their money was being used, or that the defendant’s public statements were false, that does not diminish the seriousness of the defendant’s conduct.

The defendant’s crimes were not a one-time event arising, for example, from a split-second decision made under financial duress or momentary bad judgment. Rather, Bankman-Fried’s crimes were the product of a series of decisions made over the course of years, and it was within his power to stop his crimes at any point in time. That was made apparent through the trial testimony of his co-conspirators. Over and over again the defendant was confronted with the fact that he was using customer funds. That happened when he wanted to buy back shares from Binance; when he wanted to make new venture investments in 2021 and early 2022; when he sought to repay lenders in June 2022; when was confronted again with the reality of the deficit in September 2022; and even in November 2022 when he tweeted falsely that everything was fine. And on every one of those occasions, and during all the time in between, the defendant continued with his fraudulent scheme. On this score, the testimony of Ellison and Singh is particularly telling. In 2021, the defendant asked Ellison to determine whether he could spend billions of dollars on new venture investments. She did the math, determined it was unwise and could spell billions in losses, that it would necessitate using billions of dollars in customer funds in the event of a market downturn, warned the defendant against going down that road, and yet he proceeded anyway. When Bankman-Fried went headfirst into new, risky spending using customer money, he knew exactly what he was doing; as he wrote to Ellison: it “could get worse.” (GX-49A). And when it had gotten much worse in September 2022, Singh confronted the defendant on the balcony of their penthouse about the nearly $14 billion deficit in customer funds, telling him that his stress about the fraud was “doing a lot [of] damage to [him].” (Tr. 1407). Bankman-Fried at the time conceded that it had been “taxing” him some, but he did not cease the fraud, rather he continued to spend money and perpetrate the scheme against his victims. (Id.). At all times, it was within the defendant’s power to stop the entire fraud. He chose not to do so.

The crimes were exceedingly complex, reflecting meticulous orchestration, sophisticated maneuvering, and cunning deception. Take, for example, the defendant’s fraud on FTX’s customers. In order to perpetrate it, he had Wang implement secret privileges into FTX’s code, he created a new shell company (North Dimension) to receive payments, he used loan agreements and round-trip transactions to conceal money movements, he even had Wang create a fake “insurance fund” number on FTX’s website to make it appear there was security for customers’ deposits. He also went to great lengths to dupe investors. He instructed Singh to create backdated transactions in FTX’s transaction database to falsely create revenue for the company, and then created a backdated contract to paper that transaction. And when it came to Alameda’s lenders, he told Ellison to make seven alternative versions of the firm’s balance sheet so that he could select which best concealed the fact that he had been stealing billions of dollars through the company. Each of these elaborately deceptive acts reflects a deliberateness and cunning to the defendant’s crimes that go directly to the seriousness of the offense.

Third, Bankman-Fried’s crimes are extremely serious because of their profound effect on the victims. References to the victims’ enormous losses simply do not capture the harm the defendant inflicted. To the extent there has been any suggestion that the victims of the defendant’s crimes were cryptocurrency gamblers who had money to spend and could tolerate their losses, that is simply wrong. For one, when customers like Julliard deposited money on FTX to buy Bitcoin, they assumed the risk that Bitcoin prices might rise and fall, not that the defendant would make speculative bets with their deposits. The enormity of the defendant’s fraud—and the way he casually treated billions of dollars entrusted to him as his personal supply—should not drown out the individual harm suffered by many people of far more limited means who were seduced by the defendant’s representations of trustworthiness and security. Examining even a handful of emails and statements by victims of Bankman-Fried’s fraud paints a bleak picture of the terrible impact the defendant’s crimes had on thousands of people. As these statements demonstrate, the conspiracy perpetrated through FTX by the defendant and others wiped out the resources of many families—resources that, in some instances, represented hard work and life savings. In the days following the crash, the defendant himself received thousands of messages from victims through Twitter and email; and since then, the Government and the bankruptcy estate have continued to hear from individuals who lost money. Here are some examples:

• A victim who lost his “entire life savings” because he “entrusted [his] savings to FTX.com,” “not to buy or sell crypto, but to take advantage of the interest-bearing savings account” on FTX. The financial loss to this victim “has been devastating” and has “significantly impacted [his] ability to achieve financial stability and [has] caused immense stress and anxiety.” (Victim Impact Statement No. 6, dated March 6, 2024).

• A victim who deposited money on FTX that she “received as compensation for a car crash that left [her] disfigured when [she] was 19 years old.” She “kept this money ‘untouched’ for 30 years because [she] thought they could be the only way to give [her] an old age with dignity.” After the victim’s money was taken by the defendant, she went through a “devastating period,” during which she became “very depressed, coping with suicidal thoughts and obliging [her] partner to a life beyond miserable.” (Victim Impact Statement No. 15, dated March 8, 2024).

• A victim who “lost most of [his] savings” on FTX who wrote that “what kills me from inside is the same, disappointment and sadness I have to share with my wife; I am ashamed of myself when I have to look at my kids.” (Ex. A, victim direct message dated November 8, 2022).

• A victim who wrote: “I am writing to you not just as a victim of financial fraud, but as a human being whose life has been profoundly disrupted and whose dreams have been put on hold due to the collapse of FTX and the actions of Samuel Bankman-Fried…. The collapse of FTX … [has] not only resulted in a substantial financial loss but also inflicted deep psychological scars…. Weigh not only the financial discrepancies but the human cost of his actions. We, the victims, are not abstract entities represented by figures in a bankruptcy filing; we are individuals whose lives have been irrevocably altered.” (Victim Impact Statement No. 29, dated March 10, 2024).

• A victim who wrote: “the callous disregard for the well-being of victims displayed by FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried exacerbates the emotional toll of this ordeal. To have one’s trust violated in such a flagrant manner by entities entrusted with safeguarding assets is a betrayal that cuts deep and leaves scars that may never fully heal.” (Victim Impact Statement No. 13, dated March 9, 2024).

• A victim who put $250,000 on FTX and “hoped to use that money for [his] brother, who has a disability and need[ed] [his] help.” (Ex. A, victim direct message dated November 9, 2022).

• A victim who had “been working hard to slowly build [his] account up for years” and then lost his “entire life savings.” He wrote, “Trusting you and FTX ruined an entire life’s worth of hard work. I’m not some kid in my 20s… I can’t just start over. Beyond devastated.” (Ex. A, victim direct message dated November 9, 2022).

• A victim who wrote that the financial loss he experienced from FTX “has had a profound impact on [his] health and personal well-being. The stress and anxiety caused by the uncertainty of recovering [his] assets have taken a toll on [his] mental health. [He has] experienced sleep disturbances, loss of appetite, and heightened levels of anxiety, which have significantly impacted [his] ability to function on a daily basis. Furthermore, the financial strain resulting from this loss caused significant person problems, including difficulty in meeting financial obligations, strained relationships, and a sense of hopelessness about the future.” (Victim Impact Statement No. 16, dated March 9, 2024).

• A victim who described herself as “a single mom struggling” who “lost [her] life savings” as a result of the collapse of FTX. (Ex. A, victim direct message dated November 9, 2022).

• A victim who “trusted FTX” and had “almost all of [his] savings” on the exchange. The money, which the victim described as “not a small amount” but “insignificant” to the defendant “was money that could have brought [his] family a better life, and it is now money [he] can’t remove.” (Ex. A, victim direct message dated November 9, 2022).

• A victim living in Africa who accumulated 3 bitcoins as his “family savings,” all of which was “hard earned to break the generational poverty.” The victim wrote, “Now you have swooped in and stolen all of this…. You have single-handedly broken a self-made opportunity…. You ruin[ed] the precious life of so many people, and your own, for what? (Ex. A, victim direct message dated November 9, 2022).

• A victim who wrote: “The financial loss we incurred was significant—not just in monetary terms, but in the stability it provided our family. We were brought to the brink of losing our home, struggling to meet mortgage payments and maintain a semblance of normalcy for our child. The psychological strain of this situation cannot be overstated. My relationship with my spouse suffered, creating tensions that, to this day, we are working to overcome. The pressure and hopelessness of our predicament led me to entertain thoughts of suicide, marking the darkest period of my life. This ordeal was not simply a financial setback; it was a threat to the very foundation of my family and my own existence.” (Victim Impact Statement No. 23, dated March 10, 2024).

• A victim living in Argentina who “trusted [the defendant’s] company with 100k.” The victim wrote that “[t]his is a big part of my family savings! I have a son with autism disorder. Life is not easy to us.” (Ex. A, victim direct message dated November 9, 2022).

• A victim who had USDT (tether stablecoin) on FTX “for [his] XMAS presents.” He was not trading on FTX, just holding the tokens. According to the victim, as a result of the loss he would need to tell “his children they can’t have Christmas presents this year.” (Ex. A, victim direct message dated November 9, 2022).

• A victim who “left Ukraine during the war” and “lived in [a] basement for 14 days” with his child while his “house was destroyed by a bomb.” The victim wrote: “We lost everything in Ukraine and I sent my savings to FTX.” (Ex. A, victim direct message dated November 10, 2022).

• A victim in Nigeria who had “nearly every penny to his name” on FTX because the “banking system in Nigeria is not safe” and now does not have access to “the money to support his siblings and new wife,” as well as money he had “earmarked … for a trip to Canada where he intended to study at university.”[9]

• A victim who wrote: “I have a huge chunk of my family’s savings stuck on FTX…. The $200k I have stuck represents everything I was hoping to invest for my 2 young kids and their future.” (Ex. A, victim direct message dated November 10, 2022).

• A victim who wrote: “I am about to get married. I won’t be able to survive, those were my life’s earnings 100%. I got nothing left.” (Ex. A, victim direct message dated November 10, 2022).

• A victim from France who “in one day … lost everything [he] had invested in one year” and as a result “canceled holidays” with his son, has to be “careful about what [they] spend,” and is “in the red with [his] bank.”[10]

• A victim who wrote: “I beg you to let me withdraw some of my funds please… it’s my family’s life saving and I’m having a kid next year I really need that money back... I’m hopeless right now and I can’t end my life because my wife and my unborn still needs me.” (Ex. A, victim direct message dated November 10, 2022).

• A victim who wrote: “I’m literally ruined because of this crash. I’m a[] working man on a[n] average salary and was doing so well. You big guys in crypto always win and the smaller guys lose everything.” (Ex. A, victim direct message dated November 11, 2022).

• A victim who wrote: “Lost my life savings. Don’t know how I’m going to pay for my family anymore. Was hoping to save and take my grandma on vacation before she gets too old to travel. Pay her home off later. A dream and future destroyed…. This is heartbreaking for me.” (Ex. A, victim direct message dated November 11, 2022).

• A victim who wrote: “I have a baby due in 8 days, and I have lost 99% of my crypto because of this. You have stolen a life from me.” (Ex. A, victim direct message dated November 13, 2022).

• A victim who wrote: “I am a father, a husband, a firefighter. I have lost everything. Over 6 figures of life savings, my famil[y’s] life will never be the same. I have learned a painful lesson. Your actions as mine have real life consequences. Dreams, hopes, unbound potential gone.” (Ex. A, victim direct message dated November 17, 2022).

• A victim who told Money Watch that he put his “entire life savings” on FTX and was planning to withdraw it because he was planning to buy an “engagement ring he was eyeing.”[11]

• A victim who wrote: “The aftermath of this event has been devastating. The financial plans I had meticulously crafted over years vanished, leaving me to confront a future drastically different from what I had planned. The tail end of 2022 marked the begging of an arduous period for me, characterized by relentless efforts to recuperate my lost savings. This pursuit, however, came at a great personal cost. My relationship with my girlfriend, along with connections to friends, suffered irreparable damage as I became ensnared in a cycle of endless work. The ensuing isolation propelled me into a state of depression, a battle I have only recently begun to emerge from in mid-2023.” (Victim Impact Statement No. 24, dated March 10, 2024).

• A victim who wrote: “I haven’t been able to sleep for days because I lost all my money on FTX. I worked hard and saved for 6 years. I do not know what to do. I can no longer pay my bills. I am devastated…. I don’t know what to do with my family we can’t go on living like this.” (Ex. A, victim direct message dated November 17, 2022).

• A 23-year-old victim from Morocco who wrote: “I come from a family of five family members, and we are facing severe financial difficulties. My father suffers from both mental and physical health problems, leaving him unable to work, and as the oldest son, the responsibility of supporting my family falls heavily on my shoulders. I have been working part-time while studying to fund my education and provide for my family. All my hard-earned life savings were invested in bitcoin on the FTX platform, hoping to secure a better future for my family and myself. However, the actions of SBF and FTX have shattered those hopes. The scam has caused immense emotional distress, leading to constant thoughts of suicide. Additionally, my academic performance has suffered as I struggle to cope with the betrayal and loss inflicted by the scam… Despite these challenges, I maintain my faith in the justice system of the great country of the USA. I implore the court to consider the devastating impact this crime has had on me and my family. We seek not only financial restitution but also closure and justice.” (Victim Impact Statement No. 48, dated March 8, 2024).

The defendant’s crimes also damaged institutions. As the Court heard during the trial, the defendant’s investors had to write off their investments. As a result of the defendant’s fraud, several cryptocurrency lenders were significantly damaged or had to declare bankruptcy due to their losses. As the Court heard from Zac Prince, the former CEO of BlockFi, the company was forced to declare bankruptcy and lay off employees because Alameda did not repay its loans. The same was true for the lender Genesis, which filed for bankruptcy in January 2023. As a result, the losses to victims are not limited to FTX customers; the customers of these lenders—like BlockFi and Genesis, among others—have also suffered. As BlockFi explained in its victim impact statement:

The vast majority of BlockFi’s customers were individuals, investing their savings. When FTX collapsed, BlockFi too collapsed – and those customers abruptly lost access to their savings on November 10, 2022…. Customers have expressed desperation regarding their inability to obtain access to their savings. For example, one customer wrote to me regarding their situation: they had sold their house and put the proceeds in a BlockFi account, planning to use it for a down payment on a new house. After BlockFi collapsed, they lost access to those funds – and, thus, the ability to purchase a new house…. Other customers have discussed how BlockFi had their retirement savings, preventing them from retiring or if they had already retired, wondering how they will fund their retirement…. Smaller accounts held meaningful portions or the entirety of the life savings of some individuals, whose financial situation was precarious to begin with and the loss of hundreds or thousands of dollars devastating. In at least one case this led to an email from a BlockFi customer referencing suicide, despite the relatively small value of their account…. Tens of thousands of people – largely individual American citizens – will lose meaningful portions of their net worth…. They are permanently poorer thanks to Bankman-Fried’s criminal conduct.

(Victim Impact Statement No. 2, from BlockFi, dated March 12, 2024).

The defendant argues that the Court should consider the possible reimbursement of victims through bankruptcy as part of its consideration of the Section 3553(a) factors. (Def. Mem. at 59). But, as discussed above, victims have not yet been reimbursed, they will not be made fully whole, and even if they were, it could never address the hardship victims have experienced in the intervening period.

Fourth, Bankman-Fried’s criminality was pervasive, as evidenced not just by his fraud crimes, but by the fact that he committed several other significant crimes while running FTX. Specifically, over a multi-year period the defendant, who studied politics and routinely engaged in lobbying in Washington, D.C., engaged in an unlawful scheme to funnel millions of dollars into the political system in order to promote his own political agenda. There were two criminal elements to this scheme: first, the defendant used corporate funding, from Alameda, to pay for donations to individual candidates who are not allowed to receive corporate contributions; and second, the defendant concealed the source of the funds, and in some cases his own involvement, by sending the money through bank accounts in the names of Singh and Salame. While it is difficult to know how, if at all, these illegal contributions affected elections, the very existence of illegal donations undermines the appearance of fairness in our elections. The Government believes this is the largest violation of the campaign finance laws in history, at least as measured by the number of donations and the amount of money involved. This is far more that an ancillary violation of the election laws: the sheer scale of this scheme would justify a significant sentence even if this was the only crime the defendant was charged with.

The same is true for the defendant’s violation of the FCPA. By several measures, the defendant’s conspiracy to pay a bribe to Chinese government officials to have Alameda’s funds unlocked is one of the largest foreign bribes ever paid by a U.S. person. That is true whether you consider the amount of the bribe ($150 million) or the amount of money he was able to unfreeze as a result of the bribe (in excess of $1 billion). Like the defendant’s violation of the campaign finance laws, the bribing of Chinese government officials alone would merit a significant term of incarceration.

Taken together, the defendant’s frauds, money laundering, violation of the campaign finance laws, bribery, bank fraud, unlicensed money transmitting, obstruction of justice, and perjury demonstrate that the defendant routinely chose to conduct his business in a manner that violated the law, and indeed, paid no heed whatsoever to legal, ethical, or moral rules when faced with a business or personal decision. The pervasiveness of the criminality demands a severe sentence.

Fifth, Bankman-Fried demonstrated his willingness to deceive not only through his execution and management of the fraud at FTX, but also through his deceit in the face of investigation and indictment. Prior to the collapse of FTX, imagining a day where there could be an investigation, Bankman-Fried instructed his employees not to put anything in writing, and if they did, to put it on Signal and turn on the auto-delete function. As a result, and by the defendant’s design, his conspiratorial conversations during critical moments in the fraud were unavailable to the Government during its investigation. And then after he was indicted, the defendant attempted to tamper with witnesses, flouted the terms of his pretrial supervision, and broke the law. Again, when it came to his own testimony, the defendant engaged in perjury intended to deceive the jury about core facts of this commission of the fraud. Bankman-Fried’s hostility to and deception of law enforcement demand a significant sentence.

Finally, since November 2022, Bankman-Fried has never accepted responsibility for what he has done. At no point has he shown any willingness to admit culpability for fraud and deceit or show genuine remorse for his conduct.

Bankman-Fried, however, tells a different story in his sentencing submission, claiming that he “has consistently expressed his deep remorse for the damage caused to FTX’s customers, lenders, and employees.” (Def. Mem. at 55). As evidence of his purported repentance, he has highlighted statements during some of his public interviews after FTX’s bankruptcy and before he was arrested. (Def. Mem. at 3). But those public statements, when considered as a whole, demonstrate that even after FTX collapsed—exposing that customer funds had been misappropriated—Bankman-Fried tried to prolong and protect his scheme and feign ignorance of the fraud, despite being its mastermind.

As an example, the defendant’s submission points to his statement at the New York Times Dealbook Summit that, as the CEO of FTX, he “had a duty” to stakeholders, customers, creditors, FTX employees, investors, and regulators to “make sure the right things happened at the company,” but that “[c]learly I made a lot of mistakes” and “I did not ever try to commit fraud on anyone.” (Def. Mem. at 3). Similarly, the defendant’s submission emphasizes that when George Stephanopoulos confronted Bankman-Fried by stating that he was “ultimately responsible,” Bankman-Fried responded: “Ultimately, absolutely. Look, I should have been on top of this and I feel really, really bad and regretful that I wasn’t and a lot of people got hurt and that’s on me.” (Def. Mem. at 11). Far from expressing genuine remorse, these statements are precisely the sort of calculated, faux confession of regret that in fact serves to deflect blame, suggest that others—not Bankman-Fried—had genuine culpability, and further promote Bankman-Fried’s misrepresentations to the public that he had been dedicated to protecting customer funds and that he was an honest broker, not a fraudster. His acceptance of responsibility as FTX’s CEO is no acceptance of responsibility at all: what he claims here is that, as CEO, he is willing to bear responsibility notwithstanding that he committed no wrongdoing and did not know that anything was amiss. With these and similar statements, Bankman-Fried tried to generate respect, sympathy, and even admiration, so that the public might credit his falsehoods.

The same goes for his proclamations that he “did not ever try to commit fraud.” The evidence at trial proved, overwhelmingly, that Bankman-Fried did intentionally take money that belonged to others and that he lied about it. What is obvious is that he never intended to get caught. In his efforts to evade detection, he unsuccessfully tried to raise money from investors to conceal the hole, and took increasingly risky bets that he hoped would pay off. As of November 2022, many of those investments remained illiquid and speculative, meaning that the customer funds the defendant misappropriated to make those investments remain tied up to this day. Bankman-Fried’s supposed dedication in November 2022 “for all customers to be paid in full,” (Def. Mem. at 9), must be understood through this lens too. Prior to FTX’s collapse in November 2022, BankmanFried showed no urgency or concern about repaying misappropriated customer funds. Instead, he continued to make speculative investments and to grow Alameda’s deficit to FTX customers. It was only once he was exposed, and faced the risk of criminal prosecution, that Bankman-Fried tried to liquidate assets to satisfy customer withdrawals—a self-serving exercise once suspicions of fraud were percolating.

Despite all of his statements, Bankman-Fried has never owned up to what he did. He has lied, obfuscated, feigned apology, and tried to minimize his own involvement. Through all of that, the lack of contrition is galling. In assessing the seriousness of the offense, the Court should weigh heavily the fact that the defendant has never accepted responsibility, and that too warrants a very significant sentence.

In sum, the nature, circumstances, and seriousness of the defendant’s conduct necessitate a very significant sentence. Each of the defendant’s acts of criminality alone would warrant a very serious term of incarceration; when considered together, they require a sentence of 40 to 50 years.

[9] The Block, Pissed, Pessimistic and Paranoid, FTX Clients Face New Reality: ‘It’s All Gone’ (Nov. 14, 2022), https://www.theblock.co/post/186520/pissed-pessimistic-and-paranoidftx-clients-panic-money-likely-gone.

[10] RFI (France), What Next for French Victims of the FTX Cryptocurrency Exchange Collapse (Jan. 21, 2023), https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20230121-what-next-for-french-victims-ofthe-ftx-cryptocurrency-exchange-collapse.

[11] Market Watch, FTX Victims Are Setting Up GoFundMe Fundraisers to Try to Get Their Money Back: ‘It’s $10,000 Completely Gone’ (Nov. 22, 2022), https://www.marketwatch.com/ story/ftx-victims-are-setting-up-gofundme-fundraisers-to-try-to-get-their-money-back-its-10- 000-completely-gone-11668715451.