[Fox Business] Sam Bankman-Fried gets 25 years: Where will he serve his sentence?

FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud on Thursday by a federal judge, who made a recommendation about where the disgraced crypto king should serve his sentence.

Bankman-Fried, 32, was found guilty in November on two counts of wire fraud and five counts of conspiracy following the collapse of his crypto empire in November 2022, which has been compared to Enron. Bankman-Fried merged the assets of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange with sister hedge fund Alameda Research, and the two firms collapsed once investors moved to withdraw their funds – with billions of dollars of customer assets lost.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw Bankman-Fried’s trial in Manhattan federal court, handed down his sentence on Thursday and made a recommendation to the federal Bureau of Prisons about where the former billionaire should serve his time. 

“I strongly recommend to the Bureau of Prisons that the defendant be designated initially to a medium security facility or any lower security institution the BOP considers appropriate, and I do so for two reasons,” Judge Kaplan said.

DISGRACED CRYPTO KING SAM BANKMAN-FRIED SENTENCED TO 25 YEARS FOR FTX FRAUD

“First, I have no reason to believe that the defendant would initiate any act of violence against another prisoner or any BOP staff,” which Kaplan said would typically merit assignment to a maximum security prison facility.

“Second, defendant’s notoriety. His association with vast wealth – regardless of his present and actual financial resources – and his autism and social awkwardness are likely to make him more than usually vulnerable to misconduct by other inmates in the environment of a maximum security facility,” Kaplan explained. 

“I further recommend that the designated facility be as close to the San Francisco Bay Area as possible for the purpose of facilitating family visitation,” he added.

SAM BANKMAN-FRIED’S $222M BAHAMAS REAL ESTATE HOLDINGS TO GO ON THE MARKET

The Bureau of Prisons declined to comment on the circumstances of Bankman-Fried’s assignment to a specific prison facility or provide a timeline for BOP officials to decide where he will serve his sentence. The agency offered a statement outlining the factors it considers in assigning individuals to specific correctional institutions.

“Some of the factors include the level of security and supervision the inmate requires, any medical or programming needs, separation, and security measures to ensure the individual’s protection, and other considerations including proximity to an individual’s release residence,” the BOP explained in a statement to FOX Business.

“The same criteria apply for both initial designations and re-designations for transfer to a new facility,” BOP added.

FTX CEO JOHN RAY HAS HARSH WORDS FOR SAM BANKMAN-FRIED

Bankman-Fried’s parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, both reside in the San Francisco Bay Area and have worked as professors at Stanford Law School. 

Judge Kaplan’s recommendation that Sam serve his sentence at a medium security prison near the Bay Area points to two potential medium security federal prisons in northern California where he may be sent to serve his sentence – FCI Herlong and FCI Mendota.

FCI Herlong is located in Lassen County near the Nevada border northwest of Reno, Nevada, while FCI Mendota is in California’s Central Valley within Fresno County. Both correctional institutions have adjacent satellite prison camps to house minimum-security offenders. 

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE

Judge Kaplan’s suggestion that BOP designate Sam Bankman-Fried to a medium security facility or a lower security institution deemed appropriate by BOP could allow for his transfer to a lower security portion of either facility if he is initially sent to a medium security prison.

FOX Business’ Suzanne O’Halloran contributed to this report.

Read More 

[Fox Business] Lottery winner? Now is the time to buy your dream home

Supersized lottery jackpots may have some people fantasizing about what they would do with the funds if they won, whether that would be buying a home, paying off debt or saving.

It is, however, an even more important question for those who actually do win the lottery, like the lucky person in New Jersey who just scored a nearly $1.13 billion windfall from Mega Millions on Tuesday. Lottery winners are faced with many options.

Some winners of past jackpots or even smaller prizes have said they planned to go the homebuying route. For example, a North Carolina man who landed $1 million from a Mega Millions ticket in 2023 indicated he had plans to use it on getting a home.

MEGA MILLIONS ANNOUNCES WINNER OF $1.13 BILLION JACKPOT

That has also happened for lottery-winning participants that appear on the HGTV series “My Lottery Dream Home” and, according to a recent Realtor.com report, the show offers insight on what houses they purchase. They reportedly often defy preconceived notions some may hold of lottery winners.

The properties that many “My Lottery Dream Home” participants with lottery prizes wind up purchasing tend to be on par with and at times below the $406,700 national median, according to the real estate-focused site.

In a statement to FOX Business, Realtor.com Executive Editor Judy Dutton said home purchases by those who win the lottery are typically not extravagant, something she said stems from it being “much more common for lotto winners to win much less money” than the “rare mega-winners.”  

“And even in cases where people do win a lot, even in the millions, they don’t necessarily want to blow it all on a huge house,” Dutton said.

Plenty make home purchases that afford them the room to easily host their families, according to Realtor.com.

POWERBALL JACKPOT HITS $1.4B AS PRIZE CONTINUES TO GROW – AND SO DO THE TAXES THE WINNER WILL OWE

“The majority of lotto winners on ‘My Lottery Dream Home’ shop for homes with plenty of extra bedrooms, or even entire guest suites, where their grown kids and grandkids can sleep over comfortably,” Dutton said, noting it pushed back on the idea lottery winners want to keep their success to themselves.

Others have financially helped loved ones with acquiring a house, Realtor.com reported.

“My Lottery Dream Home” participants also tend to relocate within their area and to forgo exotic new places when they spend winnings on homes, according to the site.

They go with older homes instead of luxury ones in many instances “proving that cutting-edge style and upgrades aren’t always big priorities,” Dutton said.

Using funds from a lottery price to acquire a home can be a “great idea,” Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Advisor Andrea Williams told FOX Business.

“Buying property gives you a place to live without sending your money to someone else, which you do when renting,” she said. “You get to own an asset that will typically increase in value overtime.”

MEGA MILLIONS LOTTERY $1 BILLION JACKPOT: ANNUITY OR LUMP SUM?

She recommended lottery winners looking to buy real estate consult a financial professional and keep in mind yearly expenses a person encounters with a house.

“When buying a home and budgeting, there’s an additional 2-4% of the house value going toward annual expenses such as homeowners’ insurance, property taxes, utility bills and general maintenance,” Williams said. “So, a $500,000 home can have anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000 of annual expenses. And what we don’t want to do in this situation is become house poor.”

The next opportunity people have to nab a massive lottery grand prize is Saturday, when Powerball next draws for its $935 million jackpot.

Read More 

[Fox Business] Bitcoin ETF blowout wows even BlackRock’s Larry Fink

Blackrock CEO Larry Fink, who oversees $10 trillion, running the world’s largest asset manager, is no stranger to things being big. Still, the explosive growth of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds, especially the firm’s, caught even the seasoned Wall Street executive off guard. 

“I am very bullish on the long-term viability of bitcoin,” he said Wednesday during an interview on “The Claman Countdown.” The cryptocurrency has been climbing and hit a fresh all-time high of $71,000 this week. 

“That surprised me how much that’s gone up. I mean, look, we’re creating now a market that has more liquidity, more transparency. And I’m pleasantly surprised. And I would never have predicted it before we filed it, that we were going to see this type of retail demand,” Fink added. 

DISGRACED CRYPTO KING SAM BANKMAN-FRIED SENTENCED TO 25 YEARS

The firm’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, which trades under the ticker IBIT, handily pulled in $10 billion in the first few weeks and is now nipping at the heels, with $17 billion in assets, of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust, which has $23 billion, as tracked by VettaFi through Thursday. 

LIVE CRYPTO PRICES: FOXBUSINESS.COM

“IBIT is the fastest-growing ETF in the history of ETFs. Nothing is gaining assets as fast as IBIT in the history of ETFs,” Fink noted. 

Investors are plowing money into spot bitcoin ETFs after the Securities and Exchange Commission approved these products for the first time in January, making it easier for both institutional and Main Street investors to invest in bitcoin. 

It is also helping drive gains for the cryptocurrency, up 54% this year, ahead of the S&P 500’s 10% rise. 

Interest in bitcoin is rivaling one of the safest assets on the planet: gold. 

“In their first 30 days, the recently approved spot-based bitcoin ETFs attracted a whopping $30.6 billion. Just as staggering, it took only 57 days for these ETFs to cross $50 billion in AUM [assets under management] — a feat that took spot-based gold ETFs more than five years,” noted Wells Fargo Institute’s John LaForge, head of Real Asset Strategy, and Mason Mendez, Investment Strategy Analyst, in a March 19 note. 

While the demand is no doubt impressive, Sean OHara, President, PacerETFs Distributors, remains skeptical. Unlike a gold ETF, such as SPDR Gold Shares GLD, which is backed by physical gold, bitcoin is not backed by a physical asset. 

You can buy bitcoin, you know, lots of different places, and you can hold it in lots of different places. So to put it inside an ETF didn’t make any sense to us because we wouldn’t feel like we were delivering any real value,” he said. 

Read More 

[Fox Business] Viral TikTok trucker argues industry is great alternative to a 4-year college degree: ‘Golden ticket job’

As student debt mounts, Americans are looking for lucrative alternatives to a four-year college degree and trucking is proving to be a promising path for many. 

A 24-year-old social media sensation, who goes by “Alex the Trucking Guy” on social media, has built a large following detailing his life on the road as a trucker for Variant in America. Since the start of the pandemic, Alex has garnered over a million and a half followers across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, allowing viewers to come along with him as he documents the job of a trucker traveling cross-country. 

Alex, who didn’t reveal his last name, told Fox News Digital he first learned about the trucking industry from another YouTuber, “Riding with Dave,” whose channel he discovered during the pandemic.

“Everyone was at home watching movies and just videos in general … One day, I came across his YouTube videos ‘Riding with Dave’ and he just showed the life of a truck driver and, I just said to myself, ‘Like, why not? I’m just that type of person, I just think, ‘I have nothing to lose, you know?’” Alex explained. “So I just went for it, and it turned out to be just the best decision, honestly, that I could have ever made.” 

“Since I made that decision to become a truck driver, I started posting videos, first on TikTok and then YouTube and then Instagram Reels,” he added. “I started posting behind the scenes contents of the life of a truck driver, like who we are and really putting a face to these giant machines that you see on the road, really humanizing the job.”

EXPERT DETAILS THE IMPACTS THE ‘GREAT TRUCKING RECESSION’ WILL HAVE ON AMERICANS

Alex said he tried to get his associates degree, but eventually dropped out. 

“College wasn’t for me,” he said. “Honest answer, my parents wanted me to go to college, but it wasn’t a thing for me to be in an office all the time, for 40 years. That wasn’t the path that I had in mind, with my dreams, and so, I just dropped out [and] I took it upon myself just to take control of my life.” 

He ended up working in a cheese factory, but when the COVID pandemic hit, his life took a turn. At the time, he was living with his mom and grandma, and he didn’t want to risk getting them sick, so he quit his job and stayed home. That’s where “Riding with Dave” came along and inspired him to get into the trucking industry. 

Now, he said he can’t believe how successful his social media channels have become and the interest that his trucking content generates. 

In 2021, “as I was packing my bags to go to CDL school, the trucking school, to learn how to drive a semi truck, I wrote down on my goal board with my marker, three different goals for YouTube,” he said. “One was to get at least a 5% click-through rate on each video, get at least a thousand views for a video and make $10,000 in ad sales by 2022 … and it’s far surpassed anything that I even set for myself.”

TRUCKER WARNS BIDEN’S EPA REGULATIONS WOULD BE ‘CATASTROPHIC’ FOR THE AMERICAN FOOD SUPPLY

“My life has just gone to a level beyond what I dreamed of, it’s incredible,” he added. “Sometimes I feel like I can’t believe that I’m doing what I’m doing, and I mean that in a good way, the social media platforms that I’ve been able to build out just mind-boggles me to this day.”

Alex said there are plenty of trade jobs that people can qualify for by taking classes or getting certifications that don’t require a college degree or exorbitant amounts of student loan debt. 

“Then after you’re done with that, you live out a much more financially stress-free life because you don’t have that $50,000, $100,000 student loan you have to pay back,” he said. 

In 2022, over 8 million people were employed in jobs that related to trucking activity and 3.54 million truck drivers were employed in 2022, a 1.5% increase from 2021, according to data from the American Trucking Association. 

Trucking specifically, he said, allows a certain level of freedom because truckers don’t have to go to the same place or into an office every day. 

TRUCKER WARNS AGAINST ‘CATASTROPHIC’ BIDEN EPA RESTRICTIONS: SUPPLY CHAIN COULD BE ‘DEAD IN THE WATER’

“The pay is also great,” he said. “A big benefit is you technically don’t have to pay for housing because your company will supply the semi-truck. I just drive the truck. My company bought the truck. If anything breaks on the truck, I call them, they pay to repair it.”

“So there’s that level of financial freedom that you’re setting yourself up for, as a benefit,” he added. 

He did admit that there can be downsides to the job, especially if a trucker has a family, since they will be away so much. But, Alex said trucking is a “golden ticket job” for someone in their early 20s, like him.

“By the time you’re 30 with no mortgage, no rent and you’re in a high-paying job, you’re building yourself to be in a great position,” he said. 

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics listed the mean annual pay for heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers at $53,090 as of May 2022. However, that was significantly down from 1980, the New York Times noted, as one analysis found average pay was roughly double that at the time when adjusted for inflation. 

Read More