Sam Bankman-Fried got a Drake shoutout, posted from prison, and faced a new $10M forfeiture order tied to his Semafor investment.
Sam Bankman-Fried is having a big week, and not all of it is good news for the disgraced crypto founder.
On May 15, Drake dropped his ninth studio album, ICEMAN, and the track “Dust” opens with a direct reference to the catastrophic FTX collapse.
In the song, Drake calls SBF one of his guys and calls for his release from prison. The bars landed like a thunderclap across crypto Twitter. Drake rapped: “An FTX penthouse high-riser, yeah / Samuel Bankman, free all my guys up, yeah.” He then described himself as “a BTC crypto big-timer” a few lines later.
Bankman-Fried fired back from his bunk at the Terminal Island Federal prison with his signature humor, posting on X: “The Drake stimulus package is real. Dust is a vibe, and when I get out, I can loan you my bean bag chair.”
The bean bag chair reference was a nod to his famously chaotic days at FTX before everything came crashing down. The response showed he is still following mainstream culture from inside the federal detention center.
The timing of all that good vibes energy couldn’t be more ironic.
Just days after the Drake shoutout went viral, a federal judge in New York signed a preliminary order of forfeiture requiring Bankman-Fried to hand over another $10 million.
The order, signed by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan on May 7, 2026, targets $10 million sitting in a Fiduciary Trust Company account representing the return of his investment in Semafor, Inc. The court labeled it a “substitute asset” and ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to take immediate possession of the funds.
This $10 million grab comes on top of the staggering $11.02 billion forfeiture money judgment the court entered back in March 2024.
The government noted in the filing that the entire money judgment against Bankman-Fried remains unpaid to this day. Prosecutors identified the Semafor investment return as one of the few remaining assets they could actually get their hands on.
The court made clear that once a final order of forfeiture drops, the $10 million goes directly toward satisfying the larger judgment.
Bankman-Fried is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence after a jury convicted him of fraud and conspiracy charges tied to the FTX collapse.
His family has pushed hard for a presidential pardon, but President Trump has downplayed any possibility of granting one. SBF has spent recent months posting on X through a friend and praising the administration, apparently hoping something sticks.
Drake can rap about freeing himself all he wants. The federal government just took another $10 million off the top.
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