Caroline Ellison

Identity and role

Caroline Ellison ran Alameda Research, the crypto hedge fund owned by Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang, as its chief executive; The Block describes her as co-CEO. CBS News describes Alameda as a hedge fund controlled by Bankman-Fried "that was used to process FTX customer funds"; FTX was the exchange Bankman-Fried and Wang co-founded.

Biography / career arc

Ellison worked for Bankman-Fried from 2017 until late 2022, according to her lawyers' account reported by CBS News. After FTX collapsed in November 2022 she became a cooperating witness. At Bankman-Fried's 2023 trial she testified for nearly three days. She blamed him for justifying FTX's illegal conduct and said she had felt relief when the company collapsed because she "didn't have to lie anymore."

Pandemic-relief / PPP-EIDL role

Ellison was not a relief-program actor. The conduct in her case ran from 2019 to 2022, through the pandemic years. The SEC charged her on December 21, 2022. Its complaint alleged that from 2019 to 2022, at Bankman-Fried's direction, she bought large amounts of FTT, the token FTX issued, to prop up its price. FTT served as collateral for FTX's undisclosed loans of customer assets to Alameda, so a higher FTT price inflated the collateral on Alameda's balance sheet. The complaint also alleged that she used misappropriated FTX customer funds for Alameda's trading.

At trial she testified that she had altered Alameda's balance sheets to hide that it was borrowing about $10 billion from FTX customers in June 2022, when crypto prices were falling and lenders were asking Alameda for their money back. She said Alameda reached customer deposits through an unlimited line of credit and through a bank account known as "fiat@" that received customer deposits directly.

Their own relief

No PPP or EIDL loan to Ellison personally appears in the records cited here. SBA's PPP loan data list a $370,518 loan to Alameda Research LLC, 2000 Center Street, Berkeley, California, approved on April 27, 2020 through Signature Bank. The borrower reported 20 jobs and put all of the money down for payroll. The data record the loan as paid in full on May 20, 2022, with no forgiveness. The Berkeley address is the one Voyager Digital's bankruptcy filings gave for Alameda Research Ventures; Voyager's July 2022 declaration also listed $376.8 million in loans outstanding to Alameda Research Ltd. The money in her criminal case came from FTX's customers.

Legal status / controversies

Ellison pleaded guilty in December 2022 to seven counts: two of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two of wire fraud, and one each of conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, securities fraud and money laundering. She consented to a settlement of the SEC case, subject to court approval, under which she would be permanently barred from violating the securities laws and from serving as an officer or director; the court was to decide any disgorgement and penalty.

On September 24, 2024 Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced her to 24 months in prison, and she agreed to forfeit about $11 billion. Kaplan called her cooperation "very, very substantial." "I've seen a lot of cooperators in 30 years here. I've never seen one quite like Ms. Ellison," he said. He still imposed prison time because she had taken part in what he said might be the "greatest financial fraud ever perpetrated in this country."

Where they are now (2025–2026)

Ellison reported to the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut, a low-security prison, on November 7, 2024, the Bureau of Prisons confirmed to The Block. Bankman-Fried is serving a 25-year sentence; the Second Circuit upheld his conviction in June 2026.

Sources held in this archive

FTX Was a Pandemic Money Story

Sam Bankman-Fried — FTX co-founder, convicted in 2023 with Ellison as the central witness.