It's the final week of the first quarter, and fifteen months after the FTX collapse, the final week of Sam Bankman-Fried's criminal trial: Bankman-Fried is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Lewis Kaplan, who has presided over his trial from the beginning. This Thursday, March 28th.
The Bankman-Fried ruling is not the only major event in the cryptocurrency space this week, nor the only major event in the FTX story. Read on to find out what to expect in the cryptocurrency space over the next week.
Judging SBF depends on one man
US prosecutors, led by Damien Williams, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, asked Judge Kaplan to jail Bankman-Fried for 40 to 50 years for his role in orchestrating “probably the largest fraud of the last decade.” Meanwhile, Bankman-Fried's family, supporters and even a fellow inmate have called for leniency, highlighting his struggles so far in prison. Bankman-Fried's lawyers proposed a much lighter sentence of between 63 and 78 months.
Now, Bankman-Fried's sentence will be handed over to Judge Kaplan. While Bankman-Fried's lawyers sometimes exasperated the smart 79-year-old, his questions and suggestions during the trial showed a deep understanding of FTX's collapse. Kaplan's treatment of Bankman-Fried, along with the co-conspirators who testified against him, will undoubtedly set a precedent for similar cases of financial fraud in the future.
However, the FTX story doesn't stop at Bankman-Fried; This week, Unabomber prosecutor Robert Cleary was given the green light to investigate FTX's law firm Sullivan and Cromwell, which advised the company before and after the bankruptcy.
“S&C may have breached its ethical duties of confidentiality, openness and loyalty by…deceiving Bankman-Fried into giving control of FTX to… [new CEO John] “Wray (selected by S&C) made promises that Bankman-Fried would play an important role in the reorganization — promises that S&C knew were almost certainly false,” two law professors wrote this week, referring to Sullivan and Cromwell.
The optimism token and the dYdX token are unlocked
In token unlock news, according to TokenUnlocks data, the layer 2 Optimism network is set to open 24.16 million OP tokens, worth about $91.5 million at current prices, on Friday, March 29. Decentralized exchange dYdX will open 33.33 million tokens, worth about $110 million at current prices, on Sunday, March 31.
Other significant unlocks: On March 27, gaming community company Yield Guild Games will unlock $16.7 million worth of tokens and decentralized AI service SingularityNet will unlock $9.3 million worth of tokens. On March 30, blockchain gaming platform Echelon Prime will unlock $37.5 million worth of tokens while the top layer network Sui will unlock $6 million worth of tokens on the same date.
Where will Do Kwon end up?
Do Kwon, founder of Terraform Labs and cryptocurrency Luna, was released from a Montenegrin prison this week. It remains unclear whether Do Kwon will be extradited to South Korea or the United States; Both jurisdictions remain undecided about where it will end up.
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