Despite Sam Bankman-Fried's appeal, the FTX drama has come to an end with the former CEO of FTX being sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The consequences of this historic trial will last a lifetime. The former CEO of the now-closed cryptocurrency exchange was found guilty on seven counts of money laundering conspiracy and fraud in November.

His sentence, which was handed down in late March, put him behind prison for over 20 years.

Three former close allies of Bankman-Fried testified against him during the trial, claiming that he gave them instructions on how to use FTX cash for paying off Alameda's debts, funding political campaigns, and buying opulent real estate in the Bahamas. They are facing punishment after admitting to fraud.

The dream of cryptocurrency became a nightmare.

Once worth $32 billion, FTX failed in late 2022 and filed for bankruptcy as part of a larger of cryptocurrency collapse.

The misappropriation of client funds for dubious investments through a closely related hedge fund, Alameda Research, was blamed for the company's demise.

The court's ruling states that FTX's founder, Bankman-Fried, utilised client cash for his own high-risk business endeavours, which ultimately led to the company's downfall.

It's not just Bankman-Fried who is having legal issues. Do Kwon, the former CEO of Terraform Labs, was recently charged with fraud in a New York City court; Kwon has been incarcerated in Montenegro since the beginning of the year.

While acknowledging that he made blunders in risk management, Bankman-Fried fiercely refuted any claims that he had stolen anything.

Beyond just financial losses, the repercussions from FTX's failure damaged the reputations of prominent people connected to the company.

This incident set off an industry-wide crypto failure chain reaction, from which it hasn't entirely recovered.

Furthermore, the episode lowered public opinion of cryptocurrencies at a critical juncture when the asset class was beginning to acquire traction in the mainstream and sparked regulatory investigation.

Before the crash, nobody is concerned.

Risks are frequently ignored by investors during large market rises. Following the influx of cryptocurrency after 2020, Bankman-Fried gained notoriety and attracted new investors from the traditional finance sector.

In this new era, Michael Saylor's $250 million Bitcoin investment was a game-changer.

The FTX eulogy from Sequoia highlights how venture capitalists (VCs) may overlook conducting due research before investing in the cryptocurrency market.

With a strong reliance on FTT tokens, Alameda Research operated under the presumption that FTT pricing would stay steady and Customers wouldn't stop using FTX.

It wasn't that investors and clients of FTX trusted SBF and his associates without doing due diligence; rather, the issue was that, at the time, they were indifferent.

Regulators will select a paradigm.

Regulation is, of course, the simple answer to the issue. In light of the FTX incident, SEC Chair Gary Gensler underlined, saying,

"The purported fraud committed by Mr. Bankman-Fried is a wake-up call to crypto platforms that they must comply with our laws."

With tried-and-true measures like appropriate client fund protection and business line separation, compliance protects investors as well as those who have investedi n crypto platforms."