Sam Bankman-Fried’s prison life is sounding more like a long setup for a comeback than a quiet retreat from crypto. New York Magazine reports that the 34-year-old former FTX CEO is taking daily medication, writing a prison memoir, and even talking about launching a new token once he gets out.
According to the report, Bankman-Fried now lives at a federal facility in California and takes Adderall and Emsam every day for clinical depression and ADHD. Most of the time, he is writing a serial memoir, “Manfred,” which he ships through the prison postal system to a limited group of pals. He’s also a staunch vegetarian, and he avoids the cafeteria, buying supplies from the jail commissary to cook his own meals.
The article adds lighter details too. Bankman-Fried reportedly spent about $135 on a prison tablet and has played the same game roughly 6,000 times. He has even compiled what one outlet dubbed a “vegetarian prison cookbook” based on his meal experiments.
“Start My Own Coin” After Release
New York Magazine also describes a prison conversation between Bankman-Fried and fellow inmate David Bunevacz about life after release. When Bunevacz asked what he would do, SBF allegedly said a “serious business” would need $50 million to $100 million in starting capital. He then said he would “launch his own new token” and claimed, “everyone would flock to it.”
Bunevacz later told the magazine, “He may have been joking, and they probably won’t flock to it. But who knows?” The remark still fits a pattern: even in prison, Bankman-Fried talks about new ventures and fresh capital instead of leaving crypto behind.
At the same time, Bankman-Fried is trying to reduce the consequences of his conviction. Reports say he formally filed a presidential pardon request with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney on June 8, asking Donald Trump to clear his record after his sentence ends.
The filing quickly appeared on Polymarket, where users bet on political and legal outcomes. After the news broke, traders pushed the odds of SBF receiving some kind of pardon into the mid‑teens, with one summary putting the probability around 14% in the days that followed. Whether that number rises or falls, the mix of a prison memoir, a potential new token, and an active pardon market shows Bankman-Fried’s story remains tightly tied to crypto’s most controversial edges.
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