Release Date for Incarcerated Former FTX Exec Ryan Salame Moved Up by a Year

Incarcerated former FTX executive Ryan Salame appears to have already slashed a year off his prison sentence.

Data from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons indicates Salame’s release date is now March 1st, 2031. The former co-chief executive of FTX Digital Markets reported to prison in October after being sentenced to 7.5 years behind bars, meaning he was initially scheduled for release around April 2032.

Salame pled guilty last year to conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions and defraud the Federal Election Commission (FEC), as well as conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business.

In May, District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced the former executive to 7.5 years behind bars, but a legal dust-up over the indictment of the mother of his child, Michelle Bond, delayed the start of his prison term.

FTX imploded and filed for bankruptcy in November 2022 amid accusations that founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried mishandled the exchange’s funds by loaning out billions of dollars worth of customer deposits to Alameda Research, the firm’s trading arm, to make risky crypto bets that went awry.

The exchange’s multi-billion dollar collapse led to a sharp downtick in crypto prices, and US federal authorities arrested Bankman-Fried the following month. In March, Judge Kaplan sentenced Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison and three years of supervised release.

He also ordered the 32-year-old to pay $11 billion in forfeiture. Bankman-Fried is appealing his conviction and sentence.

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