In a development so perfectly pandering that even a court jester would blush, the disgraced former king of crypto, Sam Bankman-Fried, has apparently set his sights on a presidential pardon from the one man who could make a Ponzi scheme look like fiscal responsibility: Donald J. Trump. The news, delivered via the usual leaking colanders within the Manhattan detention centre, suggests that Bankman-Fried, or 'SBF' as he likes to be called (presumably because 'Samuel' is too formal for someone who stole billions), believes that only a man who has himself danced with indictments can absolve him of his sins.
The City of London, that venerable institution of polished brass and polished consciences, has already issued a warning that such a pardon would send 'regulatory shockwaves' through the financial world. Shockwaves, they say, as if the recent collapse of FTX wasn't a neutron bomb of its own. The Square Mile, which had so eagerly welcomed Bankman-Fried to its hallowed halls (and his lobbying money to its pockets), now acts as if he is a stranger who shat on the Axminster.
One can only imagine the scene: Bankman-Fried, with his trademark mop of unwashed hair and the vacant stare of a man who has seen the future and it didn't include his own wealth, grovelling before the orange demigod of Mar-a-Lago. 'Please, Mr President, I gave millions to your rivals. I thought I could buy the entire Democratic party. But now I see the error of my ways. Forgive me, and I'll give you a few million in crypto that I definitely didn't steal from charities in the Bahamas.'
Trump, of course, would be amenable. After all, a pardon for a crypto fraudster is no different to a pardon for a convicted campaign manager; it's all about loyalty. And who better to be loyal to the man who made 'You're Fired' a catchphrase than someone who fired the futures market into the sun?
But the City of London is right to be terrified. If Trump pardons Bankman-Fried, it will send a signal that the United States is open for business for any crook with a blockchain and a dream. The FCA might as well pack up and go home. The entire regulatory framework that was hastily erected in the wake of FTX's collapse? A house of cards. FinTech will become FinFraud, and the Square Mile will be awash with desperate men trying to sell you tokenised tulips.
And yet, there is a beautiful poetic justice in this. Bankman-Fried, the man who wanted to buy all the politicians, is now reduced to begging from a man who thinks buying Greenland is a sound geopolitical strategy. The libertarian wunderkind who despised regulation now needs the government's ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card. The man who claimed to be doing 'effective altruism' is now as altruistic as a drowning rat.
So let them panic, those suited men in their glass towers. Let them clutch their pearls and their spreadsheets. The circus is back in town, and it's bigger and more absurd than ever. Bankman-Fried for president? No, but a pardon? It's almost too perfect. And if nothing else, it's a reminder that in the theatre of the absurd that is modern finance, the jester always ends up on the throne.
