Sam Bankman, aka “Crypto King,” was found guilty of FTX fraud.

After a month-long trial in New York, Sam Bankman-Fried, a former billionaire and one of the most well-known figures in the cryptocurrency industry, was found guilty of fraud and money laundering.

FTX, Bankman-Fried’s company, filed for bankruptcy last year, leading to His sentencing date is set for March 28 of next year, and he now faces decades behind bars.h next year.

Bankman-Fried was charged by the prosecution with deceiving lenders and investors and embezzling billions of dollars from cryptocurrency exchange FTX, thereby contributing to the collapse of the exchange. He was accused of seven counts of money laundering and fraud. Bankman-Fried entered a not guilty plea to all of the charges, arguing that despite his mistakes, he had behaved honourably.

In an attempt to get their sentences reduced, three of his former close friends and coworkers—including his ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison—pleaded guilty and consented to testify against him. Their sentencing is scheduled for a later time. According to former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti, the government prevailed in this case by applying intense pressure to cooperators, striking deals with them at an early stage, and conducting the trial in a highly efficient manner.

The maximum sentence for five of the charges Bankman-Fried was found guilty of is twenty years in prison; the maximum sentence for the other two charges is five years. That means that Bankman-Fried could receive a sentence of decades to come, though it is unlikely that the judge will actually impose the maximum of 110 years.

Alameda Research owed FTX $8 billion (£6.5 billion) when the company filed for bankruptcy last November. In an attempt to persuade jurors that the prosecution had not provided sufficient evidence to support his claim of criminal intent, Bankman-Fried took the bold step of testifying on his own behalf.

In his testimony, Bankman-Fried maintained that the money transfers between his companies were “permissible” and stated that, until a few weeks prior to the FTX collapse last year, he was mainly ignorant of the financial hole that his deputies had described. Many customers were unable to get their money back after the collapse.

The implications of Bankman-trial Fried’s for the cryptocurrency industry, which has not been able to bounce back from last year’s market turbulence, were being closely observed. He has been viewed as a symbol of the industry’s woes, which top US regulators have called rife with criminality.