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Fortune
Fortune
Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested, and the memes can barely keep up

FTX Crypto Sam Bankman-Fried SBF
(Credit: Jeenah Moon—Bloomberg/Getty Images)

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested on Monday, and Crypto Twitter can’t get enough.

The 30-year-old was picked up by the Royal Bahamas Police Force after the local government received a formal notice from the U.S. that it had filed charges against him and likely would seek his extradition.

News of the arrest comes about a month after SBF's crypto exchange declared bankruptcy and he resigned as CEO. For some Twitter users, the arrest couldn’t have come soon enough.

Many celebrated the arrest of SBF, who’s been accused of using customer funds deposited at FTX to fund risky bets at his trading company, Alameda Research.

Rumors had been circulating online since FTX’s implosion last month that somehow SBF would be protected from prosecution because of his numerous political donations to politicians, although that was not the case.

Still, some users lamented that Bankman-Fried had managed to tarnish the entire reputation of crypto while also risking billions of dollars in customer funds.

Some on Crypto Twitter speculated that SBF may have even been arrested during a gaming session—after he reportedly played video games during a pitch meeting with Sequoia Capital. 

After the implosion of FTX, the collapse of Three Arrows Capital, and much of the bad news surrounding crypto this year, some online are speculating that the market finally may be nearing the bottom with SBF’s apprehension. Some are even sarcastically rooting for the dead crypto token Luna Classic to make a comeback after its value plummeted during the TerraUSD debacle earlier this year.

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