FTX Co-Founder Ryan Salame’s Prison Sentence Reduced By 1 Year

FTX co-founder Ryan Salame has now received a reduced sentence from the earlier 7.5 year hail term pronounced earlier. The former executive of the bankrupt exchange is in jail for the role he played in Sam Bankman-Fried’s multi-billion dollar fraud scheme.

What Happened to Ryan Salame?

Salame received the 7.5 year term after he pled guilty to engaging in conspiracy bordering on unlicensed money-transmitting.

Initially, he was scheduled to start his sentence at Maryland’s medium-security Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland on October 13, a Sunday. However, the court ruled that the date be moved to October 11 on request of the government .

According to a report from Business Insider, the Federal Bureau of Prisons reviewed Salame’s records recently and discovered that his expected release date is March 1, 2031.

This is a year short of the initially sentence that he received. The reason for this adjustment is not yet clear but one Bureau of Prisons spokesman noted that good behavior is a reason for incarcerated individuals to earn time off their sentence under the 2018 First Step Act.

The spokesperson also mentioned that “qualifying individuals will be eligible to earn up to 54 days of GCT time for each year of the sentence imposed by the court.” The GCT term in this case is Good Conduct Time.

The latest development on Salame’s sentence comes as FTX prepares for reorganization and its creditors’ repayments. As part of the plan, it has engaged the services of Kraken and BitGo for the funds’ disbursement.

Fate of Other FTX Executives and the Potential SBF Pardon

Ryan Salame is only one out of the couple of FTX executives that got caught up in the unfortunate implosion of the Bahamian-headquartered cryptocurrency exchange.

The mastermind behind the crash, Bankman-Fried, received a 25-year jail sentence in the first quarter of 2024. Recently, many have opined that U.S President Joe Biden may grant him an early pardon.

Alameda Research former CEO Caroline Ellison is also serving a 2-year penance at a low-security federal prison in Connecticut.

Unlike her, former FTX Chief Engineer Nishad Singh did not receive any jail time for his role in the exchange’s collapse. Co-Executive Gary Wang also received leniency from Judge Lewis Kaplan for following his cooperation with prosecutors.