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Private Jets, Political Cash Among $1B in Sam Bankman-Fried's Forfeited Assets: Court

A federal court confirmed the final tally of SBF assets the government staked a claim to, including $606 million in Robinhood stock sales and two private jets.

Feb 19, 2025, 2:00 p.m.
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (Jesse Hamilton, modified by CoinDesk)
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried's assets were untangled by the court. (Jesse Hamilton, modified by CoinDesk)

What to know:

  • Disgraced former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried had so many assets, the U.S. government needed dozens of pages to detail what he forfeited when he was convicted of fraud.
  • The biggest single item on the list was more than $600 million one of his companies held in Robinhood shares.

A federal court has outlined just how extensive Sam Bankman-Fried's assets were before the young CEO of FTX was tried and imprisoned for fraud, and the government swooped in to seize roughly $1 billion in financial assets and two aircraft.

The final order of forfeiture issued on Tuesday by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York formally severed Bankman-Fried's ownership stake in a property list dozens of pages long. The court document revealed the wide swath of assets the one-time billionaire claimed ownership in, including extensive crypto holdings of Alameda Research, the trading firm SBF co-founded.

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From the many pages of cryptocurrencies, Alameda's assets at Binance included $56 million in Ripple-connected token (XRP), $3.6 million of Tron's (TRX), $3.4 million of Cardano (ADA), $2.3 million in bitcoin (BTC) and dozens of others, according to the accounting.

The weightiest holding detailed among the assets were the proceeds from the sale of Robinhood stock — $606 million held by Bankman-Fried's Emergent Fidelity Technologies.

Other financial assets included:

  • $119 million in Tether held at Binance for Alameda Research
  • $21 million at Marex held for Emergent Fidelity Technologies
  • $50 million at Moonstone Bank for FTX Digital Markets
  • $101 million at Silvergate for FTX Digital Markets
  • $7 million at Flagstar Bank for SBF and another individual

The accounting of forfeited assets also included two private jets: a 2009 Bombardier Global 5000 and a 2006 Embraer Legacy.

The court document also detailed an extensive list of more than 250 political donations that had been pulled back from the campaigns and the organizations that received them, including amounts that other FTX executives allegedly gave under SBF's direction. At one point, one in three members of Congress during the last session were recipients of money from Bankman-Fried or other FTX executives, and they gave to an extensive array of state political organizations, too.

Also on Tuesday, the first payouts began in the bankruptcy of FTX, with $1.2 billion going out to those who were owed relatively small amounts. They were set to recover about 119% of what they'd initially had in their accounts during the 2022 collapse, missing out on the huge upswing in crypto markets since then.

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KuCoin Hits Record Market Share as 2025 Volumes Outpace Crypto Market

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KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market.

What to know:

  • KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
  • This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralised exchange volume, as KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumes, which slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
  • Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly split, each exceeding $500 billion for the year, signalling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
  • Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
  • Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activity, indicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.

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Coinbase drops peso-based services in Argentina less than a year after market entry

Coinbase (appshunter.io/Unsplash/Modified by CoinDesk)

The move is deemed a "deliberate pause" and not a full exit, with Coinbase planning to reassess and return with a stronger product.

What to know:

  • Coinbase is suspending its fiat on- and off-ramp services in Argentina, effective January 31, 2026. Users will no longer be able to withdraw pesos to local banks from then on.
  • The move is deemed a "deliberate pause" and not a full exit, with Coinbase planning to reassess and return with a stronger product.
  • Crypto-to-crypto trading will remain unaffected on the exchange, with cryptoasset withdrawals operational.