MIT Bitcoin Club, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons / Graywalls, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Disgraced crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried has hit the headlines once again after he received a 25-year prison sentence on Thursday, five months after he was deemed guilty of robbing over $8 billion from customers to fund his now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

Judge Lewis Kaplan accused the 32-year-old of “present[ing] himself as the good guy” by showing public support for what he characterized as “appropriate regulation of the crypto industry,” reports the New York Post.

But alas, Bankman-Fried was putting up an “act” the entire time, according to Kaplan.

“He did it because he wanted to be a hugely, hugely political influential person in this country,” said Kaplan, who accused Bankman-Fried of being “remorseless.”

“He knew it was wrong, he knew it was criminal, he regrets that he made a very bad bet about the likelihood of being caught.”

Bankman-Fried's 25-year sentence comes after prosecutors recommended he spend 40–50 years in prison over the aforementioned theft.

“The defendant victimized tens of thousands of people and companies, across several continents, over a period of multiple years. He stole money from customers who entrusted it to him; he lied to investors; he sent fabricated documents to lenders; he pumped millions of dollars in illegal donations into our political system; and he bribed foreign officials,” they wrote. “Each of these crimes is worthy of a lengthy sentence.”

FTX was reportedly worth $40 billion at its peak, with Bankman-Fried jetting around on private planes and donating millions to various politicians at the time.