Though Bitcoin ended 2024 having reached an all-time high price of more than $100,000, the year also marked the end of criminal cases of many high-profile cryptocurrency industry leaders and scammers.
FTX and Alameda executives
In its heyday, FTX was one of the most prominent cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, bringing in millions of users from dozens of countries. That changed in less than a week in November 2022 after the firm reported liquidity problems and was forced to declare bankruptcy.
After a lengthy extradition process from the Bahamas, former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried was moved to United States custody and initially released on bond. He was held in a correctional facility after a federal judge revoked his bail in August 2023, prior to his criminal trial, conviction and sentencing.
After a judge sentenced Bankman-Fried to 25 years, he was remanded to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to assist in his appeal. Jan. 1, 2025, marked the first New Year’s Day SBF spent in prison as a convicted and sentenced felon, and he isn’t alone.
SBF’s one-time girlfriend, Alameda Research ex-CEO Caroline Ellison, and former FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Saboth pleaded guilty to fraud charges related to the collapse of the crypto exchange. They were sentenced to two years and seven-and-a-half years, respectively, though the US Bureau of Prisons has listed Salame’s release date as 2031.
Ellison spent her New Year’s at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut, which houses male and female inmates. In one of his last acts as a free man before reporting to prison on Oct. 11, Salame changed his LinkedIn profile to state he was “starting a new position” as an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland.
Tornado Cash developers
Roughly a year after US Treasury officials added addresses associated with the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash to the department’s list of sanctioned entities, authorities arrested Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm on money-laundering charges.
Storm is free on bail before his April 2025 trial and didn’t spend his holidays locked in a prison cell. His colleague, Roman Semenov, was not in custody and was on the FBI’s most-wanted list at the time of publication.
A similar criminal case in the Netherlands is a different story. In 2022, Dutch officials arrested Alexey Pertsev, who co-founded the crypto mixer with Storm and Semenov, for money laundering.
Pertsev’s case moved forward; he was found guilty and sentenced to more than five years in prison in May 2024. As of January 2025, the Tornado Cash developer remains in custody as his lawyers prepare to appeal the conviction and sentence.
IcomTech promoters
David Carmona, the founder of the crypto Ponzi scheme IcomTech, has been held in US detention since his 2022 arrest and received a 10-year sentence from a federal judge in 2024.
Despite a recommendation that he serve his time in a New York-area facility, Bureau of Prison records showed Carmona was housed at the Federal Correctional Institution in Ashland, Kentucky, as of December.
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Carmona was among the first of his IcomTech cohorts to ring in the New Year in prison. Two of the project’s promoters, Gustavo Rodriguez and David Brend, were also convicted for their roles in the scheme. A judge sentenced Rodriguez to eight years in prison, while Brend received 10 years. Brend reported to the Federal Prison Camp in Pensacola, Florida, on Dec. 16.
Bitfinex money launderers
Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, the husband and wife behind laundering millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin from the 2016 hack of cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, have both been sentenced to prison.
A judge sentenced Morgan, also known by her rapper name Razzlekhan, to 18 months. She is scheduled to report to the facility on Jan. 24. Following her hearing, she has continued to post on social media, promoting herself as “crypto’s favorite felon” while asking for contributions.
Lichtenstein was remanded to the custody of the Attorney General in 2022 “for confinement in a corrections facility separate, to the extent practicable, from persons awaiting or serving sentences or being held in custody pending appeal.”
The Bureau of Prisons website stated he was not in any federal facility at the time of publication, but a court filing suggested he was still in custody.
Last New Year’s in prison?
At least one of the biggest names associated with crypto-related crimes may be released in 2025 after the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. As a presidential candidate, Trump promised to commute the sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who is currently serving life at a US penitentiary in Tucson.
Ulbricht was already in prison during Trump’s first term, causing some crypto users to question whether the soon-to-be president will actually commute his sentence. Ulbricht was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole following his 2015 conviction for money laundering, computer hacking and conspiracy to traffic narcotics.
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