On the 720th day in prison, SBF missed his little bear pillow

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

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

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

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 writer, Walter Pavlo, as a consultant for SBF, focusing on writing about prison topics.

According to an informed agent, SBF's autobiographical memoir may bring publishers millions of dollars in advance payments. "SBF's motivation for trying to find a publisher for his diary is unclear. It's obviously not for money."

Because according to the confiscation policy, all of SBF's property and potential income, including the income that may be obtained from the publication of the memoir, will be used to repay his debts and compensate the victims of his fraud. This means that even if the publication of the memoir can bring in a large amount of income, the money will be directly used to compensate those who have suffered financial losses due to the bankruptcy of FTX.

Exterior view of MDC, Brooklyn, New York, where SBF is held

In SBF's eyes, all his cellmates are gorillas

"He writes as if he were Jane Goodall," said someone who has read the first three chapters of SBF's diary. I think this analogy is very vivid. This biologist is the world's most famous expert on chimpanzees. She has been studying chimpanzee society and family interactions for 60 years.

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

The following is from SBF, who seems to observe and study the other inmates in the prison as if they were "chimpanzees": "Most people will be assimilated into the prison. They will fight for a banana and will exchange everything they have for the opportunity to take drugs again."

"A drug called Deuce is widely used here. I can't see the ingredients. I only know that it is smuggled into the prison by soaking it on ordinary paper, and those prisoners who take it will turn into zombies every night."

"There are two kinds of people in the prison. One is the prisoners serving long sentences who have consciously given up hope in life." The other is SBF The group you belong to: "How do you fight the system when it takes away your freedom to rebel? How do you stay true to your true self when it is seen as such a threat to society that it needs to be locked up until you finally give it up?"

It is said that people go through several stages of psychological changes after experiencing major events: numbness - not believing, refusing to accept the facts; blame - blaming others and yourself for not handling the development of things; depression - accepting what has happened, and thus feeling sad and depressed; recovery - getting through the depression and starting a new life again.

Born in an educated family, SBF's current life has a great impact on him. He seems to need more time to digest his emotions than the average person after experiencing major events. Even after two years in prison, SBF seems to be in the first and second stages. His writing in the diary always "coldly observes" everything around him, saying "I don't belong here."

On the 720th day of imprisonment, SBF missed his little bear pillow

Sleeping in prison is not very good. Even at night, the screams and curses of prisoners in MDC, a sleepless place, are heard one after another. The lights are always in a half-bright and half-dark state for 24 hours, making it difficult to tell the time. This makes SBF very uncomfortable.

Since he was two years old, SBF has always had a stuffed bear named Manfred. This inconspicuous little bear witnessed his college years from Stanford to Boston, his career as a trader in New York, and the creation of Alameda and FTX from Berkeley and Hong Kong to 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.

Image source: @LilMoonLambo

In MDC, a comfortable pillow is almost a luxury. SBF tried to use a suit from court, or a towel and prison uniform stacked together to replace the pillow, but these temporary solutions were far from providing enough comfort. "My neck is starting to hurt." He said helplessly.

He traded two muffins for a pillow improvised by a drug addict cellmate with mattress filling and T-shirts, and this little improvement made his night a little easier.

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

SBF wrote with contempt: "I really can't bear to tell him that this trading strategy is a typical "gambler's fallacy."

Although SBF behaves like an 80-year-old man in prison, no one knows "gambling" better than him in this regard. The prison mainly survives on beans and rice, and rice has "become a trading currency within the MDC." SBF even joked that "compared to his previous life as a high-frequency trader, the arbitrage opportunities in prison are much better." He was finally able to be a proud trader again and continue to despise everything around him, whether it was the people here or the life here.

People who are conceited are more likely to succeed, but they are also more likely to mess things up. This also explains why, in order to fight back against the three star witnesses on the other side in court, he stood in the witness stand and testified himself. Even though his lawyer and a prosecutor told him that the probability of self-proof was quite low, there were very few cases in history where the defendant successfully defended himself, and he had only seen one defendant successfully self-proof in his 22-year career.

But SBF insisted on his own way and almost broke up with his own lawyer, and the scene was chaotic for a while.

Photo of SBF in MDC prison on Christmas Day 2023

On the other hand, in stark contrast to SBF, is CZ, who paid a $4.3 billion fine and spent four months in a U.S. prison. In the photos taken by reporters during his previous court appearances, he was always wearing a neat suit and looked relaxed.

CZ in and out of court

In addition to CZ's own apology letter, the judge also received a 43-page appeal letter, the longest in history, from CZ's family, friends and colleagues, which presented a more three-dimensional image of CZ to the judge.

Although they are both in prison, CZ and SBF show completely different styles: "This experience has made me realize the most important things in life. I miss my children, family, friends, colleagues and community. I miss other things, but not as much as I miss people. You will miss food and a comfortable bed, but these things have little impact on me."

When asked if he made friends in prison, CZ answered affirmatively, "Yes, you must make friends. It may be very difficult to be isolated and helpless." He expressed sympathy for prisoners who served long sentences for minor mistakes and kept in touch with some friends.

CZ also started to exercise, which may be a preparation he made before going to prison to prevent being regarded as "the physique of an 80-year-old man" in prison. CZ, who was released from prison more than a month ago and appeared at the Binance Blockchain Conference in Dubai, performed better than anyone expected and won the applause of the audience. The headline of the foreign media that day was "The King Is Back".

If SBF was still there

When SBF was arrested, the price of BTC was 16,000 US dollars, and the current price of BTC is 100,000 US dollars. SBF has missed too much in the crypto industry in the past two years.

Some people who "judge heroes by success or failure" say that CZ has much richer life experience than SBF, and he is more resilient in his performance in difficult situations. But those who do not judge heroes by success or failure say that if SBF was still there, the current market environment might be the same.

"If SBF had not been in trouble, the current market would definitely be better." This is the common feeling of many old investors who have experienced the golden age of FTX and SBF.

"For example, the market has fallen sharply in the past two days. If FTX can still be used, retail investors will have more opportunities to make money. The most typical example is FTX's basket of altcoin index, which is to go long or short the entire altcoin index instead of a specific altcoin."

But after FTX collapsed, the product track of this "altcoin index" is still blank, and there is currently 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 greatly shortened the liquidity in the industry. "The entire industry has regressed 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 now."

SBF's trader background left a deep impression on the market, and everyone believed that he was more sensitive to the direction of the market. Many people believe that if SBF is still here, his insight and innovation will push some emerging tracks, such as Solana, to new heights, and then bring the entire industry to a higher level.

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

References:

1. "Sam Bankman-Fried Is Shopping His Prison Diary – Here’s A Peek Inside", Steven Ehrlich, Forbes;

2. "SBF maintains his innocence as he trades rice in jail", Jesse Coghlan;