Author: Jaleel 加六

"What the actual fuck, we can't use pillows? Are we even Can’t you even sleep? ”

On December 13, 2022, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was formally arrested by the Bahamas police. If you count from that day, that's 720 days that SBF has been in jail, exactly two years.

"I miss my bear pillow, it's called Manfred", SBF wrote in his diary. This little bear pillow named Manfrd is the longest in the first three chapters of the 32-year-old SBF’s diary after an $11 billion property forfeiture and 25 years in prison, except for describing his fellow inmates.

Exterior view of SBF prison, MDC, Brooklyn, New York< /p>

Outside the prison, another busiest person is SBF’s father. In addition to preparing for SBF’s appeal at the legal level, his father also hired a Forbes contributor Walter Pavlo, as SBF consultant who specializes in writing on prison topics.

SBF's autobiographical memoir could fetch publishers millions of dollars in advances, according to an agent familiar with the matter. "The SBF's motivation for trying to find a publisher for its diary is unclear. It was clearly not for money."

Because under the forfeiture, all of the SBF's property and potential income , including potential proceeds from publishing his memoirs, will be used to pay off his debts and compensate the victims of his fraud. This means that even if the publication of the memoir brings in significant revenue, that money will go directly to compensating those who suffered financial losses as a result of FTX's bankruptcy.

"His strokes seem to I am Jane Goodall", for those who have read the first three chapters of SBF's diarySo, I think this analogy is very vivid. The biologist is the world's best-known expert on chimpanzees, having studied their social and family interactions for 60 years.

I found a sentence written by Jane Goodall: "For the first ten years of my research, I always thought that chimpanzees were friendlier than humans, until I observed that the dominant Dominant females will deliberately kill the young of other females in the group to maintain their dominance, and may even be cannibalistic. Like us, they have a dark side. ”

Next is SBF When writing, he seemed to observe and study other inmates in the prison like "chimpanzees":

"Most people will be assimilated by the prison. They will fight for a banana, and they will trade everything they have for the chance to take drugs again."

"One is called Deuce. The drug is widely used here, and the ingredients are not visible. I only know that it is smuggled into the prison by soaking it into ordinary paper, and those prisoners who take it turn into zombies every night."

"There are two types of people in prison. One type is prisoners who have served long sentences and have consciously given up hope in life." The other type is SBF. Groups you belong to: “How do you fight against a system when it robs you of your freedom to rebel? When your true self is seen as such a threat to society that it needs to be caged until you finally give it up , how do you stay true to your true self? ”

It is said that people will go through several stages of psychological changes after experiencing major events: numbness stage - can't believe it, refuse to accept the facts; blame stage - blame others and themselves, and fail to deal with the development of things; depression stage ——Accepting what has happened, resulting in sadness and depression; recovery period——getting through the period of depression and starting a new life.

Born in a Kochi family, life now has a great impact on SBF. He seems to take longer than the average person to digest emotions when experiencing major events. Even after two years in prison, SBF seems to be in stages one and two. His writings in the diary always "looked at everything around him with a cold eye" and told him that "I don't belong here."

Sleeping in prisonSleeping is not very good. MDC is a sleepless place. Even at night, prisoners scream and curse one after another. The lights are always in a semi-dark state 24 hours a day, making it difficult for people to tell the time. This makes SBF Very uncomfortable.

Since he was two years old, SBF has had a stuffed bear named Manfred. This humble little bear has witnessed his journey from Stanford to college in Boston, to his career as a trader in New York, and from Berkeley and Hong Kong to the creation of Alameda and FTX in the Bahamas. These are the most important moments in SBF's life.

In the loneliest moment of his life, Manfred is his only comfort. "I really miss Manfred," he wrote in his diary.

Photo source: @LilMoonLambo em>

In MDC, a comfortable pillow is almost a luxury. SBF tried to replace the pillow with a suit from court, or a towel and prison uniform stacked on top of each other, but these temporary solutions were far from providing enough comfort. "My neck has started to hurt," he said helplessly.

That's until he traded two muffins for a pillow that was improved by a junkie inmate out of mattress stuffing and a T-shirt. His night was slightly easier.

In prison life, sports gambling has become a pastime for many prisoners. One day, an inmate named Harry shared his gambling strategy with SBF: “Bet $100 first, then bet $250 if you lose, then bet $600 again, and so on until you win back. All bets."

SBF With a contemptuous tone, he wrote: "I really can't bear to tell him that this trading strategy is a typical 'gambler's fallacy.'"

Although SBF is in prison He behaves like an 80-year-old man, but in this regard, no one understands "gambling" better than him. The main subsistence in the prison is beans and rice, and rice has "become a currency of transaction within the MDC." SBF even jokingly said: "With him,The arbitrage opportunities are much better in prison than in my former life as a high-frequency trader. "He can finally be a proud trader again and continue to despise everything around him, whether it is the people here or the life here.

Arrogant people are more likely to succeed and mess up easily. This can also be well understood. In order to counter the three star witnesses opposite him in court, he stood on the witness stand and testified in person. Even though his lawyer and a prosecutor told him that the probability of self-incrimination was very low, historically there were very few cases where defendants successfully self-incriminated themselves, and only one defendant in his 22-year career had ever successfully self-incriminated.

But SBF insisted on going his own way, and even almost fell out with his own lawyer, and the situation was chaotic for a time.

Christmas 2023, SBF at MDC prison photos

On the other side, in sharp contrast to SBF, is the person who completed a $4.3 billion fine and spent four months in a US prison Living CZ. In the photos taken by reporters during his previous court appearances, he was wearing neat suits and looked calm.

CZ entering and leaving the court

In addition to the apology letter written by CZ himself, the judge also received a 43-page plea letter, the longest in history, from CZ’s family, friends and Colleagues, let CZ’s complete image be displayed in front of the judge in a more three-dimensional way.

It is also prison life, but CZ shows a completely different style from SBF: "This experience made me realize the most important things in life again. Things. I miss my kids, my family, my friends, my colleagues, and my community. I miss other things too, but not nearly as much as I miss people. You miss food, and a comfortable bed, but those things don't affect me. Big. ”

When asked if he had made friends in prison, CZ responded in the affirmative, "Yes, you have to make friends. It can be difficult if you are alone." sympathize with long-term prisoners and maintain relationships with someFriendly connections.

CZ also started to exercise, which may have been done before he was imprisoned Be prepared to go out and prevent yourself from being regarded as having "the physique of an 80-year-old man" in prison. CZ, who was released from prison more than a month ago, appeared at the Binance Blockchain Conference in Dubai. His performance was better than anyone expected, and he won a lot of applause from the audience. The headline of the foreign media that day was "The King Is Back".

When SBF was arrested, the price of BTC was US$16,000, and the current price of BTC is US$100,000. In the past two years, SBF has missed a lot in the encryption industry.

Some people who "judge heroes by success or failure" say that CZ has much richer life experience than SBF, and he also shows more tenacity in difficult situations. But if we don’t judge heroes based on success or failure, if SBF were still there, the current market environment might be the same.

"If nothing happened to SBF, the current market would definitely be better." This is the common feeling of many old leeks who have experienced the golden age of FTX and SBF.

"For example, the market has plummeted in the past two days. If FTX can still be used, retail investors will have more opportunities to make money. The most typical one is the basket of FTX The altcoin index is long and short on the entire altcoin index, not a specific altcoin. ”

But FTX. After the collapse, the product track of this "copycat index" is still blank. Currently, there is no platform on the market that can provide similar services.

Not only is a trading tool missing, the collapse of FTX is a major blow to the liquidity of the crypto market, which has rapidly shortened the liquidity in the industry. . "The entire industry has regressed for at least three years." This was the intuitive feeling of many people at the time, including Justin Sun.

"SBF and FTX understand the market better than any trading platform on the market today."

SBF's background as a trader has left a deep impression on the market, and everyone believes that he is more sensitive to market trends. Many people believe thatIf SBF were still around, his insight and innovation would push some of the emerging circuits led by Solana to new heights, and then take the entire industry to even greater heights.

On the 720th day of imprisonment, SBF missed his bear pillow Manfred. And outside, there are still people who miss the golden era of SBF.