What does disgraced ‘Crypto King’ Sam Bankman-Fried’s sentence mean for the industry?

euronews.com:

Sam Bankman-Fried, the fallen ‘Crypto-King’, as he was once known, was sentenced to 25-years in prison for defrauding customers and investors of his now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX.

Thursday’s ruling shows how the legal system is trying to clamp down on crypto scams. But while the sentencing serves as a warning to the industry, it is uncertain if it will be a watershed moment that cleans up crypto.

Bankman-Fried was cherished in the industry and went from having his face on the cover of Fortune magazine in September 2022, as head of the world’s biggest crypto exchange, to being sat in a courtroom wearing khaki prison clothes and shackles on his feet two years later.

The sentence was less than the 40 to 50 years federal prosecutors wanted, but it is much more than the five years Bankman-Fried’s lawyers were after.

“This is a message that is loud and clear. They [the Department of Justice] are not going to tolerate nefarious, criminal, white collar criminal behaviour in the cryptocurrency sector and industry,” said Moises Vela, an attorney and former director of the administration of then-Vice President Joe Biden.

But Vela, who is also an advisor to the cryptocurrency Unicoin, said it might not save the industry from bad actors.

“You could argue that it [legal punishment] has never worked because people continue to commit the same crimes.

“But I hope it works. I have to believe that people will see that if you misbehave and you act in an egregious criminal behaviour pattern, you will be punished,” he said.

The crypto market has seen unprecedented growth and has been seen by many as a get-rich-quick scheme.

But the SBF saga saw many people lose their life savings, causing them two years of stress. It may see crypto investors become