Low? That's high! He didn't kill anyone. A sentence of 25 years completely destroys his life. He's been made an example of.
And the citizenry are the only ones left who can be deterred by this message. Islamic State will switch to using suicide bombers who have no fear of torture.
My personal theory is that Prigozhin's aborted mutiny last year and Ukraine's sustained drone campaign against Russian oil infrastructure paved the way to the Crocus Hall attack. Now the doors have been opened and Russia's internal security has been revealed for the paper tiger that it is. Every single paramilitary group with a bone to pick with Russia has now been forcefully made aware of Putin's weakness and now they'll be lining up to copy these attacks. All the while, he continues to try to blame Ukraine for this despite all evidence to the contrary. Scary times to be living in Russia right now!
The "victims" knew they were intentionally avoiding government oversight of securities law, banking regulators, etc. When they lost money we should have collectively shrugged our shoulders and said that's the risk they chose to take.
*: yes stupid, not an ad hominem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww47bR86wSc
There was a trial and now a sentencing, your argument according to law is wrong.
Or would folks here suggest the numerous HN contributors who have worked in gambling tech are deserving of life in prison as well?
If SBF told everyone loud and clear "hey guys you can give me money and I will use it to gamble on my favorite crypto tokens and play board games with Caroline" then I don't think he would deserve a prison sentence (but he also wouldn't get any customers). It's the deception that makes it a crime.
I would enumerate a number of immediate logical consequences of this idiocy, but that would be illegal (a shame, really).
Personally, I'm glad SBF is being held accountable but this sentence seems very harsh, especially given that I expect all of his coconspirators will mostly be let off the hook.
If it was for me to decide - yes, absolutely.
If they committed crimes to sell tobacco (which, to my knowledge, is true for at least some of them), absolutely, yes.
How many lifetimes worth of time were destroyed by his fraud.
It's definitely not high punishment.
The difference is consent and malicious behavior.
When I invest into stock market, it can always go down.
When you move your customers money to save your other failing company, it's fraud. There is no consent and there is malicious behavior.
Crypto repeats all failings of old-fashioned banking system we have learned over 2 centuries, except it's "with blockchain" now.
> A sentence of 25 years completely destroys his life.
Hopefully he is ALSO restricted, for life, from ever working in finance again.
A felony conviction is pretty effective for heavily restricting any type of employment. The universal and cheap access to background checks means work is either places that deliberately have "hire a felon" programs or some type of self-employment, or connections with people very high up in a company. Though all those angles are also complicated if any sort of state licensing is involved.
He's already proven he's perfectly fine running his empires from countries with a more relaxed attitude to financial regulations.
I would also agree that spending a 3rd of your life in prison is in effect destroying it.