I followed this case when it happened. It was $16M at the time, not sure how it became $65M now. I suppose it doesn't matter - any number above $100k probably grants the same punishment*

Interesting side-note : the people he took/stole from - they offered him 10% if he returned the rest. He said no in a tweet trolling them.

Contrary to the opinions in this thread, I think he was smart to run away. Remember that he did this from Canada, not the US. Countries don't have the same extradition treaties with Canada that they do with US.

If he had stayed, he would almost certainly be convicted. No court can possibly understand "code is law". Courts' job is only to interpret the law, not make the law. And the law was not written for crypto. You cannot fit a square in a circle without distortion.

What I think would have happened is the courts, rather than introducing novel precedent, would have preferred to just rely on existing case law and declare him a criminal.

Another interesting side-note : the judge presiding the case made a public comment asking the guy to come back to Canada promising him a fair trial. The guy didn't show up - maybe he didn't receive the message.

Overall, even with the benefit of hindsight, we still can't be sure if he was smart to exploit this or not. Forced to live in a few countries but with a lot of money.

* It's because (1) laws were designed when numbers were lower (no one had $16M to steal); (2) humans can't visualize big numbers (individually, $16M is just as big as $65M in my head)