720th day in prison SBF misses his little bear pillow

Author: Jaleel Jialiu

"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 Manfrd 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.

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

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

According to an informed agent, SBF's autobiography may bring publishers an advance payment of millions of dollars. "SBF's motive for trying to find a publisher for his diary is unclear. It's clearly 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 suffered financial losses due to the bankruptcy of FTX. In SBF's eyes, all cellmates are gorillas "He writes as if he is Jane Goodall," said someone who has read the first three chapters of SBF's diary. I think this analogy is very vivid. The biologist is the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, having spent 60 years studying their social and family interactions.

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

The next is written by SBF, who seems to observe and study other inmates in the prison as "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 in ordinary paper, and those prisoners who take it will become zombies every night."

"There are two types of people in prison. One is the prisoners who are serving long sentences and have consciously given up hope in life." The other type is the group that SBF himself belongs to: "How do you fight the system when it deprives you of the freedom to resist? How do you stay true to your true self when your true self 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 period - can't believe it, refuse to accept the facts; blame period - blame others and yourself, and don't deal with the development of things; depression period - accept what has happened, so sad and depressed; recovery period - get through the depression period and start a new life again.

Born in a highly 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 of prison life, SBF seems to be in the first and second stages. In his diary, he always "looks coldly" at everything around him, saying "I don't belong here."

On the 720th day of imprisonment, SBF misses 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, which 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 was his only comfort. "I really miss Manfred very much," he wrote in his diary.

Photo credit: @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 has started to hurt." He said helplessly.

Until he exchanged two muffins for a pillow improvised by a drug addict inmate with mattress filling and T-shirts, this little improvement made his nights 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: "First bet $100, if you lose, bet $250, if you lose again, bet $600, and so on, until you win back all the 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 relies on beans and rice for survival, and rice has "become a trading currency within the MDC." SBF even joked that "the arbitrage opportunities in prison are much better than his previous life as a high-frequency trader." 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.

Arrogant people are more likely to succeed, but they are also more likely to mess things up. This can also explain why he stood in the witness stand and testified in person in order to fight back against the three star witnesses on the opposite side in court. 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 prove himself in his 22-year career.

But SBF insisted on his own way and even almost fell out 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 sharp contrast to SBF is CZ, who completed a $4.3 billion fine and spent four months in a U.S. prison. In previous court appearances, reporters took photos of him wearing a neat suit and looking at ease.

CZ in and out of the court

In addition to the apology letter written by CZ himself, 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 both are in prison, CZ and SBF show completely different styles: "This experience 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 have to make friends. It can be very difficult to be isolated and helpless." He expressed sympathy for prisoners who were serving long sentences for minor mistakes, and kept in touch with some friends.

CZ also started working out, which may have been a preparation he made before he went to prison to prevent being regarded as an "80-year-old man's physique" in prison. CZ, who was released from prison more than a month ago and appeared at the Binance Blockchain Conference in Dubai, was in better condition 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 is still here

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

"If SBF hadn't had an accident, the current market would definitely be better." This is the common feeling of many old leeks 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 through long and shorting the entire altcoin index, rather than a certain altcoin."

But after FTX fell, 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 there, his insight and innovation will push some emerging tracks led by Solana to new heights, and then bring the entire industry to a higher level.

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