‘We do not want your support’: SBF backs Clarity crypto bill from prison, drawing bipartisan rebuke from Sens. Lummis and Warren

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s support of a broader cryptocurrency bill isn’t sitting well with either side of the aisle in the Senate.

On Wednesday, the jailed exec voiced his support of the Clarity Act, sweeping legislation to regulate the crypto industry.

“The CLARITY Act will be a huge milestone for crypto and a huge achievement for @realDonaldTrump,” Bankman-Fried said in a post on X. “I was championing a similar bill to get crypto out of [former Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary] Gensler’s hands when Gensler helped Biden’s DOJ put me behind bars.”

In 2022, Bankman-Fried, before being convicted on multiple fraud and conspiracy charges for misappropriating billions of customers’ funds from his now-bankrupt crypto exchange, supported a bill called the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act, or DCCPA. Shortly before he was arrested, Bankman-Fried had urged lawmakers to pass that bill, later tarnishing the chances of the bill becoming law.

Bankman-Fried is now serving a 25-year prison sentence and is trying to appeal his conviction. Recently, he has been posting on X almost daily, many of them in support of the current presidential administration, in an effort to seemingly sway President Donald Trump into granting him a pardon. Trump has no plan to pardon Bankman-Fried, a White House official confirmed to The Block.

Bankman-Fried’s latest comments come as lawmakers have been trying to advance crypto legislation over the past year to regulate the industry as a whole and divvy up jurisdiction between the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The House passed Clarity over the summer and work is now being done in the Senate to pass similar bills, but face roadblocks on how to treat stablecoin yield and to address President Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest, given his family’s crypto businesses.

Crypto advocate Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis, who is leading efforts to advance legislation, said a broader bill would have put Bankman-Fried in prison for longer than 25 years.

“My legislation couldn’t be more different than the bill you tried to buy from Congress over my objection in 2022,” Lummis said on Thursday in a post on X. “We do not need—nor want—your support.”

Crypto-critic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is the top Democrat of the Senate Banking Committee that is at the center of advancing a bill, said Bankman-Fried’s support of Clarity “should set off alarm bells.”

“Any crypto market structure bill must protect investors, our financial system, and American taxpayers,” Warren said in a post on X.