Written by: Jaleel Jia Liu
'What the actual fuck, we can't even use pillows? Can't we sleep?'
On December 13, 2022, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was formally arrested by Bahamian police. If we count from that day, it marks SBF's 720th day in prison, exactly two years.
'I miss my teddy bear pillow, it's called Manfred,' SBF wrote in his diary. This teddy bear named Manfred is, after experiencing $11 billion in asset confiscation and 25 years of imprisonment, the longest content in the first three chapters of his diary, aside from descriptions of his fellow inmates.
Exterior view of the prison where SBF is located, Brooklyn MDC, New York.
Outside the prison, the other busiest person is SBF's father. Besides preparing for SBF's legal appeal, his father has also hired a (Forbes) writer, Walter Pavlo, as SBF's advisor, focusing on writing about prison topics.
According to an informed agent, SBF's autobiography may bring in a prepayment of millions of dollars for publishers. 'SBF's motivation to find a publisher for his diary is still unclear. It's clearly not for the money.'
Because according to the confiscation policy, all of SBF's property and potential income, including any income from publishing his 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 could bring in a large income, that money would go directly to compensating those who suffered economic losses due to FTX's bankruptcy.
In SBF's eyes, all inmates are gorillas.
'His writing style is as if he were Jane Goodall,' said someone who has read the first three chapters of SBF's diary, and I think this analogy is very vivid. This biologist is the world's most renowned expert on chimpanzee research, having studied the social and familial interactions of chimpanzees for 60 years.
I found a sentence written by Jane Goodall: 'In the first ten years of research, I believed that chimpanzees were friendlier than humans, until I observed that dominant females would deliberately kill the young of other females in the group to maintain their dominance, even engaging in cannibalism. They have a dark side just like us.'
Next is what SBF wrote; he seems to observe and study the other inmates in prison like 'gorillas':
'Most people become assimilated in prison; they will fight over a banana and use everything they have to trade for another chance to use drugs.'
'A drug called Deuce is widely used here; I can't tell the composition, I only know it's smuggled into prison by soaking it into ordinary paper, and those who use it turn into zombies every night.'
'There are two types of people in prison, one is long-term sentenced prisoners who consciously give up hope for life.' The other category is the group that SBF belongs to: 'When the system deprives you of the freedom to resist, how do you resist the system? When your true self is seen as such a great threat to society that you need to be locked away until you finally give it up, how do you remain loyal to your true self?'
It is said that after experiencing significant events, people go through several psychological stages: numbness - disbelief, refusal to accept the facts; blame - blaming others and oneself for not managing the situation well; depression - accepting what has happened and feeling sad; recovery - getting through the depression phase and starting a new life.
Having been born into a highly educated family, SBF seems to take longer than most to digest emotions after experiencing significant events. Even after two years in prison, SBF seems to be stuck in the first and second stages. His diary entries always observe everything around him with a 'cold eye,' expressing that 'he does not belong here.'
On the 720th day in prison, SBF misses his teddy bear pillow.
Sleeping in prison isn't great; MDC, this sleepless place, is filled with the screams and curses of prisoners even at night, with the lights always in a half-lit state, making it hard to tell the time, which makes SBF feel uncomfortable.
Since he was two years old, SBF has had a teddy bear named Manfred. This unassuming teddy witnessed his journey from Stanford to Boston's university life, to his career as a trader in New York, and the establishment of Alameda and FTX from Berkeley and Hong Kong to the Bahamas. These are the most important moments of SBF's life.
In this moment of his life, the loneliest, Manfred is his only comfort. 'I really miss Manfred,' he wrote in his diary.
Image source: @LilMoonLambo
In MDC, a comfortable pillow is almost a luxury. SBF tried to use his suit from the court or towels and prison clothes stacked together to replace a pillow, but these makeshift solutions provided far from adequate comfort, 'My neck is already starting to hurt,' he helplessly stated.
Until he traded two muffins for a pillow improvised by a fellow inmate with mattress stuffing and a T-shirt, this small improvement made his nights a bit easier.
In prison life, sports betting has become a pastime for many inmates. One day, a fellow inmate named Harry shared his betting strategy with SBF: 'Bet $100 first, if you lose, bet $250, if you lose again, bet $600, and so on, until you win back all your bets.'
SBF wrote with disdain: 'I really can't bear to tell him that this trading strategy is a classic case of the gambler's fallacy.'
Despite SBF's prison demeanor resembling that of an 80-year-old, no one understands 'gambling' better than him. Life in prison mainly revolves around eating beans and rice, and rice has already 'become a form of currency within MDC.' SBF even joked, 'Compared to his former life as a high-frequency trader, the arbitrage opportunities in prison are much better.' He finally got to be a proud trader again, continuing to disdain everything around him, regardless of the people or the life here.
Arrogant people are more likely to succeed, but they can also easily mess things up. This can be well understood by his previous stand in court, where he personally testified to counter the three star witnesses on the opposite side. Even when his lawyer and a prosecutor told him that the chances of self-defense were quite low, and that historically, very few defendants succeeded in self-defense, he had only seen one defendant succeed in his 22-year career.
But SBF was obstinate, even nearly clashing with his own lawyers, causing a chaotic scene at one point.
Christmas 2023, photo of SBF in MDC prison.
On the other side, in stark contrast to SBF, is CZ, who completed a $4.3 billion fine and spent four months in an American prison. In multiple court appearances prior, he was photographed in a well-tailored suit, looking at ease.
CZ entering and exiting the courthouse.
Besides the apology letter written by CZ himself, the judge also received the longest plea letter in history, spanning 43 pages, from CZ's family, friends, and colleagues, which presented a more complete image of CZ to the judge.
Living in prison, CZ's attitude is completely different from SBF's: 'This experience has made me re-evaluate what is most important in life. I miss my children, family, friends, colleagues, and community. I miss other things too, but not nearly as intensely as I miss people. You miss food, a comfortable bed, but these things don't matter much to me.'
When asked if he made friends in prison, CZ's answer was affirmative: 'Yes, you have to make friends; it can be tough if you're isolated.' He expressed sympathy for those serving long sentences for minor mistakes and maintained contact with some friends.
CZ has also started working out, which may have been a preparation he began before entering prison to avoid being seen as 'having the physique of an 80-year-old.' Just over a month after being released, CZ appeared at the Binance Blockchain Conference in Dubai, in a better state than everyone expected, receiving a standing ovation from the audience. That day, the foreign media's headline news read 'The King Is Back.'
If SBF were still around
When SBF was arrested, the price of BTC was $16,000, whereas the current price of BTC is $100,000. In the past two years, SBF has missed too much in the crypto industry.
Some say 'success or failure determines a hero,' and that CZ has far richer life experience than SBF, displaying greater resilience in adversity. But others say that not judging heroes by success or failure, if SBF were still around, the current market environment might be different.
'If SBF hadn't gotten into trouble, the market would definitely be better now.' This is a common sentiment among many who experienced the golden period of FTX and SBF.
'For example, in these days when the market is crashing, if FTX were still operational, retail investors would have more opportunities to make money. The most typical example is FTX's basket of altcoin indices, allowing trading on the entire altcoin index rather than on a specific altcoin.'
However, after FTX's downfall, this 'altcoin index' product track remains blank, and there is currently no platform in the market that can provide similar services.
Not only is there a lack of a trading tool, but FTX's collapse also dealt a significant blow to the liquidity of the crypto market, causing liquidity in the industry to shrink rapidly. 'The entire industry has at least regressed three years,' was the intuitive feeling of many at the time, including Sun Yuchen.
'SBF and FTX understand the market better than any trading platform on the market now.'
SBF's background as a trader left a deep impression on the market, and many believe he is more sensitive to market trends. Many believe that if SBF were still around, his insights and innovation would elevate some emerging sectors, like Solana, to new heights, consequently lifting the entire industry as well.
On the 720th day in prison, SBF misses his teddy bear pillow Manfred. And outside, there are still people reminiscing about SBF's golden age.