CFTC resolves enforcement actions against former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder Gary Wang

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has resolved its civil enforcement actions against Caroline Ellison, former CEO of Alameda Research, and Zixiao “Gary” Wang, co-founder of both Alameda Research and FTX. The pair had consented to liability judgments on fraud claims tied to one of the largest financial collapses in crypto history, and the CFTC’s announcement marks the formal conclusion of those individual proceedings. Both Ellison and Wang were added as defendants when the CFTC filed an amended complaint on December 21, 2022, roughly six weeks after FTX’s implosion sent shockwaves through the digital asset industry. Neither contested the fraud allegations, agreeing to liability judgments that the US District Court for the Southern District of New York approved just two days later, on December 23. What they were accused of The CFTC’s case centered on a scheme in which Ellison, Wang, and FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly misappropriated more than $8 billion in customer deposits held on the FTX exchange. That money was funneled through Alameda Research, the trading firm that was supposed to operate at arm’s length from FTX but in practice served as something closer to a pe...