Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, will be released from custody on January 28, after spending nearly a year in detention.
According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, she is currently at a halfway house in New York. These facilities are used to help inmates transition before their final release, assisting them in finding jobs and preparing for life outside.
In October 2025, Ellison was transferred to the halfway house from a federal prison in Connecticut. She began serving her two-year sentence there in November 2024.
Ellison led Alameda Research and was in a relationship with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. The collapse of the exchange occurred in November 2022 due to liquidity issues and misappropriation of funds.
In December 2022, Ellison pleaded guilty to seven charges, including fraud and conspiracy. She struck a plea deal and testified against Bankman-Fried. In court, she confirmed that she acted under his direction and that the trading firm had unrestricted access to FTX client funds.
Bankman-Fried himself was sentenced to 25 years in prison in March 2025, with an obligation to repay $11 billion in losses. Earlier this year, U.S. President Donald Trump ruled out the possibility of pardoning the FTX founder.
Other top executives from the platform, Gary Wang and Nishad Singh, also cooperated with authorities and avoided prison time. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sought to bar all three, including Ellison, from holding executive positions in public companies.
In November 2025, FTX representatives withdrew a motion to restrict payouts for users from 49 countries, including Russia and Ukraine.