FTX Founder Gary Wang Hopes to Avoid Prison—Unlike SBF and Caroline Ellison

Gary Wang, a co-founder and former bigwig of the now-collapsed FTX crypto empire, has asked a judge to be spared from prison after a fellow executive managed to avoid a lengthy sentence.

The founder’s lawyer argued that Wang faced the fewest criminal counts in the case and was one of the first to admit wrongdoing, court documents filed Wednesday show.

Wang pleaded guilty to fraud in December 2022—one month after the company’s quick and unexpected collapse and subsequent bankruptcy filing. 

“He was the first to cooperate,” Wang’s lawyer Ilan Graff wrote. “He received no bonus payments, obtained orders of magnitude less money from FTX and Alameda than his codefendants, and never changed his simple lifestyle.” 

Graff continued that Wang “never aspired to fame or the trappings of wealth” that his codefendants had, played the “most limited role” in FTX’s collapse, and argued that a non-custodial sentence would be best for the defendant. 

He added that Wang’s swift cooperation with law enforcement “radically accelerated” prosecutors’ work in the case.

Computer programmer Wang helped set up the disgraced digital asset exchange giant but maintained a much lower profile than its co-founder and former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried. 

He was a key witness in the FTX case, and in 2023 testified that the firm’s insiders—particularly Bankman-Fried—had access to the exchange’s customer deposits to make bets on Alameda Research, a sister company and trading desk. 

Wang is set to be sentenced on November 20. 

FTX was a top crypto exchange and one of the best-recognized brands in the space. It had deals with top American sports teams and even donated to political parties. 

But it unexpectedly went bankrupt in November 2022 amid a liquidity crunch. Billions of dollars of money disappeared from customers and Bankman-Fried—better known as SBF—was arrested, charged and later jailed for fraud and criminally mismanaging the exchange.

He is now serving a 25-year prison sentence, and a judge earlier this month approved a plan to pay back former clients of the exchange with the $16 billion recovered since the epic collapse. Bankman-Fried recently filed an appeal, with his legal team suggesting that he was “presumed guilty” going into the trial.

Other former big players at the exchange have also been hit with prison time. 

Caroline Ellison, who was CEO at Alameda and Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend, received two years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts each of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, as well as conspiracies to commit money laundering, commodities fraud, and securities fraud. Ellison received a lighter sentence after cooperating with authorities.

Ryan Salame, who was co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, received seven-and-a-half years. And Nishad Singh, FTX’s chief engineer, dodged jail last month after a judge praised him for being a key witness in the case and helping recover funds in the bankruptcy proceedings

Edited by Andrew Hayward