"What the actual fuck, we can't use pillows? Can't we even sleep?"
On December 13, 2022, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was formally arrested by the Bahamian police. If we count from that day, it was 720 days that SBF was in prison, exactly two years.
"I miss my little bear pillow, it's called Manfred," SBF wrote in his diary. This little bear pillow named Manfred is the longest content in the first three chapters of SBF's diary, except for the description of his cellmate, after experiencing the confiscation of $11 billion in property and 25 years in prison.
Exterior view of SBF's prison, MDC, Brooklyn, New York
Outside the prison, another busiest person is SBF's father. In addition to preparing for SBF's appeal at the legal level, his father also hired a (Forbes) writer, Walter Pavlo, as a consultant for SBF, focusing on writing on prison topics.
According to an agent familiar with the matter, SBF's autobiography could bring a publisher an advance of millions of dollars. "SBF's motivation for trying to find a publisher for his diary is unclear. It is obviously not for money."
Because according to the confiscation policy, all of SBF's property and potential income, including the income that may be obtained from the publication of the memoir, will be used to repay his debts and compensate the victims of his fraud. This means that even if the publication of the memoir can bring in a large amount of income, the money will be directly used to compensate those who suffered financial losses due to the bankruptcy of FTX.
In SBF's eyes, all inmates are gorillas
"He writes as if he were Jane Goodall," said someone who has read the first three chapters of SBF's diary. I think this analogy is very vivid. This biologist is the world's most famous chimpanzee research expert. She has been studying chimpanzee social and family interactions for 60 years.
I found a sentence written by Jane Goodall: "For the first ten years of my research, I believed chimpanzees were friendlier than humans, until I observed that dominant females would deliberately kill the infants of other females in the group to maintain their dominance, even resorting to cannibalism. They have a dark side, just as we do."
Next is from SBF, who seems to be observing and studying other inmates in the prison as if they were “chimpanzees”:
"Most people are assimilated to prison. They will fight over a banana and give away everything they have for the chance to get back on drugs."
"A drug called Deuce is widely used here. I can't tell what it is. I only know that it is smuggled into the prison by soaking it into ordinary paper, and the prisoners who take it will turn into zombies every night."
“There are two kinds of people in prison. One is the prisoners who are serving long sentences and have consciously given up hope in life.” The other is the group to which SBF himself belongs: “How do you fight the system when it takes away your freedom to rebel? How do you stay true to your true self when it is seen as such a threat to society that it needs to be caged until you finally give it up?”
It is said that people go through several stages of psychological changes after experiencing major events: numbness stage - not daring to believe, refusing to accept the facts; blame stage - blaming others and oneself for not handling the development of things well; depression stage - accepting what has happened, and thus feeling sad and depressed; recovery stage - getting through the depression stage and starting a new life again.
Born in an educated family, SBF's current life has a great impact on him. He seems to need more time to digest his emotions after experiencing major events than the average person. Even after two years in prison, SBF seems to be still in the first and second stages. His writing in his diary always "coldly observes" everything around him, saying "I don't belong here."
On the 720th day in prison, SBF missed his little bear pillow
Sleeping in prison is not very good. Even at night, the MDC is a sleepless place with prisoners screaming and cursing one after another. The lights are always in a half-bright state 24 hours a day, making it impossible to tell the time. This makes SBF very uncomfortable.
SBF has had a stuffed bear named Manfred since he was two years old. This humble bear has witnessed his college years from Stanford to Boston, his career as a trader in New York, and his founding of Alameda and FTX in the Bahamas from Berkeley and Hong Kong. These are the most important moments in SBF's life.
In this most lonely moment of his life, Manfred was his only comfort. "I really miss Manfred very much," he wrote in his diary.
Image source: @LilMoonLambo
At MDC, a comfortable pillow is almost a luxury. SBF tried to use the suit he wore when he went to court, or a towel and prison uniform stacked together as a pillow, but these temporary solutions were far from providing enough comfort. "My neck has started to hurt," he said helplessly.
Until he traded two muffins for a pillow improvised by a drug-addicted cellmate out of mattress stuffing and a T-shirt, that small improvement made his nights a little easier.
In prison life, sports gambling has become a pastime for many prisoners. One day, a cellmate named Harry shared his gambling strategy with SBF: "First bet $100, if you lose, bet $250, if you lose again, bet $600, and so on, until you win back all the bets."
SBF wrote with disdain: "I really don't have the heart to tell him that this trading strategy is a typical 'gambler's fallacy'."
Although SBF behaves like an 80-year-old man in prison, no one knows more about "gambling" than him in this regard. The prison mainly relies on beans and rice to survive, and rice has "become a trading currency within the MDC." SBF even joked that "the arbitrage opportunities in prison are much better than his previous life as a high-frequency trader." He can finally be a proud trader again and continue to despise everything around him, whether it is the people here or the life here.
People with conceit are more likely to succeed, but also more likely to mess things up. This also explains why he stood in the witness stand and testified against the three star witnesses in court. Even though his lawyer and a prosecutor told him that the probability of self-testification was very low, there were very few cases in history where the defendant successfully defended himself, and he had only seen one defendant successfully testify in his 22-year career.
But SBF insisted on his own way and almost fell out with his own lawyer, resulting in a chaotic situation.
Photo of SBF at MDC prison on Christmas Day 2023
On the other hand, in stark contrast to SBF, is CZ, who paid a $4.3 billion fine and spent four months in a U.S. prison. In the photos taken by reporters during his previous court appearances, he was always wearing a neat suit and looked relaxed.
CZ in and out of court
In addition to CZ's own apology letter, the judge also received a 43-page appeal letter, the longest in history, from CZ's family, friends and colleagues, which presented a more three-dimensional image of CZ to the judge.
Although both CZ and SBF are in prison, they show completely different styles: "This experience has made me realize the most important things in life. I miss my children, family, friends, colleagues and community. I miss other things, but not as much as I miss people. You will miss food and a comfortable bed, but these things have little impact on me."
When asked if he made friends in prison, CZ answered affirmatively, "Yes, you have to make friends. It can be hard to be isolated and helpless." He expressed sympathy for prisoners who were serving long sentences for minor mistakes, and kept in touch with some of his friends.
CZ also started working out, which may have been a preparation before he went to prison to prevent being mistaken for an "80-year-old man's physique" in prison. CZ was released from prison more than a month ago and appeared at the Binance Blockchain Conference in Dubai. His appearance was better than anyone expected, winning the applause of the audience. The headline of the foreign media that day was "The King Is Back".
If SBF was still there
When SBF was arrested, the price of BTC was $16,000, and now the price of BTC is $100,000. SBF has missed a lot in the crypto industry in the past two years.
Some people say that "success and failure determine a hero" and that CZ has much more life experience than SBF and is more resilient in difficult situations. However, those who do not judge heroes by success and failure say that if SBF were still around, the current market environment would probably be the same.
"If SBF hadn't gone wrong, the current market would definitely be better." This is the common feeling of many old investors who have experienced the golden age of FTX and SBF.
“For example, the market has plummeted in the past two days. If FTX can still be used, retail investors will have more opportunities to make money. The most typical example is FTX’s basket of altcoin index, which allows investors to make more money by going long or short on the entire altcoin index instead of a single altcoin.”
But after the collapse of FTX, the product track of this "copycat index" is still blank, and there is currently no platform on the market that can provide similar services.
The collapse of FTX was not only a loss of a trading tool, but also a major blow to the liquidity of the crypto market, which greatly shortened the liquidity in the industry. "The entire industry has regressed at least three years," this was the intuitive feeling of many people at the time, including Justin Sun.
“SBF and FTX understand the market better than any other trading platform on the market today.”
SBF’s trader background has left a deep impression on the market, and everyone believes that he is more sensitive to the direction of the market. Many people believe that if SBF is still there, his insight and innovation ability will push some emerging tracks led by Solana to new heights, and then bring the entire industry to a higher level.
On the 720th day of his imprisonment, SBF missed his bear pillow Manfred. Outside, there are still people who miss SBF's golden age.
References:
1、(Sam Bankman-Fried Is Shopping His Prison Diary – Here』s A Peek Inside)，Steven Ehrlich，Forbes；
2、(SBF maintains his innocence as he trades rice in jail)，Jesse Coghlan；