Will SBF be vindicated?

Question

This market will resolve to YES if by March 30th 2026, Sam Bankman-Fried is vindicated. This doesn't necessarily mean that Sam will be proven innocent, but if the public discourse forgives him somehow, this market will be resolved to YES.

This market will involve considerable judgment, and as always I won't bet.

Some ideas of people that once were vindicated

After almost blowing up the bank Salomon Brothers doing a small fraud, John Meriwether was vindicated and raised billions to his fund Long Term Capital Management.

After being caught on the wrong side of the trade on Valeant, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman was vindicated by shorting the market during the COVID-19 bear market in 2020

After being imprisoned for corruption charges, President Lula was vindicated by winning the 2022 Brazilian elections

After blowing up WeWork, Adam Neumann raised $350M for his new startup

After being fired from Apple, Steve Jobs created a very successful movie studio called Pixar and then was later hired again to fix the mess of his predecessor and ultimately changed the world by helping to create the iPhone

I'll intentionally leave as an open question what would mean vindication for SBF case and we can comment the news flow and you guys keep asking me. But if the Pope tweets about Sam calling "a great dude", or Sam successfully IPOes FTX or wins the election to be the new governor of Florida, this would definitely mean vindication.

Manifold Markets · Answer

Almost certainly not — Manifold Markets prediction market estimates a 1% chance (43 traders, as of Mar 30, 2026).