Taking customer money and using it for something else is absolutely a crime. And it has nothing to do with the regulatory status (or lack thereof) for crypto. If a car dealership takes customer down payments on cars and instead of ordering the cars they gamble the money away in Vegas, they don't get to just declare bankruptcy and say "too bad so sad", they go to jail.

To be clear, SBF/FTX total fraud.

The PhD guys from LTCM, not so much. Just arrogant.