A Manhattan district judge today sentenced FTX Trading Ltd. founder Sam Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison for fraud.

The ruling comes about five months after a jury found Bankman-Fried guilty of all seven counts that prosecutors had brought against him. The FTX founder was charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The jury found he defrauded customers, investors and lenders of more than $11 billion.

The scheme came to light in November 2022 following a CoinDesk report about Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency trading company affiliated with Bankman-Fried. The report revealed that Alameda Research’s assets under management largely comprised a cryptocurrency token created by FTX. The revelation prompted FTX users to withdraw about $6 billion in 72 hours, which caused the cryptocurrency exchange to collapse and sent ripples through the broader digital asset ecosystem.

The securities regulator of the Bahamas, where the company was headquartered, froze its local assets shortly after the November 2022 report. The following month, local authorities arrested Bankman-Fried. The U.S. Justice Department, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and several other agencies later brought charges against the FTX founder over his role in the fraud.

Bankman-Fried was sent to jail last August after the court found he had likely tempered with witnesses on two occasions. After the trial began, the prosecution argued that the FTX founder should spend 40 to 50 years in prison. Bankman-Fried’s defense, in turn, sought a maximum sentence of six and a half years.

Before handing down today’s sentence, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said that Bankman-Fried “knew it was criminal. He regrets that he made a very bad bet about the likelihood of getting caught. But he is not going to admit a thing, as is his right.” 

Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement that the FTX founder’s “deliberate and ongoing lies demonstrated a brazen disregard for customers’ expectations and disrespect for the rule of law, all so that he could secretly use his customers’ money to expand his own power and influence.”

Following FTX’s collapse, a new management team appointed to the helm of the cryptocurrency exchange launched an effort to recover customer funds. Last April, the company disclosed that it had recovered $7.3 billion worth of assets. This past January, FTX stated that it was expecting to repay customers in full.

The company at one point sought to relaunch its defunct cryptocurrency exchange. Earlier this year, FTX disclosed that it has abandoned the plan after failing to raise the necessary capital from investors and potential acquirers. 

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