FTX's victims may get all their money back. The judge sentencing Sam Bankman-Fried might not care.

According to federal prosecutors, Sam Bankman-Fried orchestrated one of the biggest criminal frauds in the history of the world. Customers of FTX, his cryptocurrency exchange, lost more than $8 billion, they say.

Their dispute leaves a four-decade gap between how long prosecutors want the ex-crypto boss to serve in prison and the much lower 6 ½-year sentence his lawyers are fighting for.

The judge who will sentence Bankman-Fried on Thursday is being asked to address this vast gulf. He will have to decide how much money the convicted fraudster should be held accountable for. He is also being asked to weigh the entire circumstances of Bankman-Fried's life, including whether he should be treated differently than a run-of-the-mill fraudster because of an autism diagnosis.

Bankman-Fried's criminal case is inextricable from the complicated bankruptcy of FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange he was convicted of using as a vehicle for his fraud.

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