CFTC resolves FTX cases against Ellison and Wang

A U.S. federal court has resolved the CFTC’s cases against Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang by imposing five-year trading bans and registration bans of up to 10 years.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on Aug. 19 that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York had entered supplemental consent orders against Ellison, the former chief executive of Alameda Research, and Wang, who co-founded Alameda and FTX.

Under the orders, both former executives must continue assisting the regulator. Ellison cannot trade for five years and is barred from registering with the CFTC for 10 years, while Wang received a five-year trading ban and an eight-year registration ban.

The restrictions did not begin with the latest ruling. According to the regulator, each period runs from Dec. 23, 2022, when the court entered the initial consent orders against the pair.

Those earlier orders also permanently barred Ellison and Wang from violating the antifraud provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act and related CFTC rules. Combined with the supplemental orders, they close the regulator’s enforcement actions against both former executives.

CFTC declines additional financial penalties

The CFTC is not seeking restitution, disgorgement, or civil monetary penalties from Ellison and Wang at present. In explaining its decision, the agency pointed to their assistance in its investigation, their cooperation in connected proceedings, and the financial consequences imposed through the parallel criminal case.

Both pleaded guilty to several federal charges, including conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, in December 2022. Their criminal cases also carried an $11.02 billion forfeiture order for which they were jointly and severally liable, according to the CFTC.

The agency treated their cooperation as a central factor when setting the civil sanctions.

“Ellison and Wang were senior executives who committed fraud at Alameda and FTX for which they were found liable,” CFTC Enforcement Director David I. Miller said. “Their sanctions, however, reflect their material assistance in the Commission’s FTX-related investigations.”

Miller said the resolution showed the value that the enforcement division placed on “robust cooperation.” Although the financial remedies differ from those originally requested, the trading and registration restrictions prevent both defendants from participating in CFTC-regulated markets or registering with the agency during the stated periods.

Ellison and Wang admitted liability in 2022

The cases began after FTX collapsed in November 2022, and the CFTC expanded its fraud lawsuit against founder Sam Bankman-Fried and his companies.

In its December 2022 amended complaint, the regulator accused Ellison and Wang of taking part in a scheme that caused more than $8 billion in FTX customer deposits to be lost. The CFTC charged Ellison with fraud and material misrepresentations involving digital asset commodities, while Wang faced a fraud count tied to their sale in interstate commerce.

Ellison was found liable on both fraud counts included in the amended complaint. Wang was found liable on the single count brought against him.

According to the CFTC’s 2022 allegations, Wang helped create code that gave Alameda an essentially unlimited credit line on FTX. Other exceptions allegedly let the trading firm execute orders faster and avoid the exchange’s automatic liquidation process, even when Alameda lacked enough money to support its positions.

The regulator claimed those features allowed Alameda to withdraw billions of dollars in customer assets without disclosing the special treatment to FTX users. FTX had publicly represented that customer funds were held in custody and separated from company assets, but the complaint alleged that Alameda routinely received and mixed those assets with its own funds.

After becoming Alameda’s sole chief executive, Ellison allegedly directed the firm to use billions of dollars from FTX for trading on other exchanges and investments in digital asset companies. The CFTC also accused her of making misleading public statements about the separation between FTX and Alameda.

Ellison and Wang did not contest their liability under the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC Regulation 180.1. Their Dec. 23, 2022 consent orders formalized those findings while leaving the court to determine the remaining sanctions later.

Criminal sentences treated cooperation differently

The supplemental CFTC orders follow separate criminal sentences that also consider how extensively each defendant assisted U.S. prosecutors.

Ellison received a two-year prison sentence in September 2024 after serving as a key government witness at Bankman-Fried’s trial. She reported to federal prison in Connecticut that November.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan imposed prison time despite prosecutors detailing Ellison’s cooperation. At sentencing, the judge said her assistance did not remove the need to deter fraud, according to the November 2024 report.

Wang avoided an additional prison term. In November 2024, Kaplan sentenced him to time served and three years of supervised release after prosecutors described his help in tracing funds and explaining FTX’s code and internal financial systems.

The court found Wang’s cooperation especially useful because he had written parts of the exchange’s software and could explain the privileges given to Alameda. During Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial, Wang testified about the code that allowed the trading firm to access customer funds and operate without the restrictions applied to ordinary users.

As Wang’s sentencing report detailed, prosecutors said he was the first member of Bankman-Fried’s senior group to approach U.S. authorities in 2022. Ellison later became a central witness against Bankman-Fried, who received a 25-year prison sentence in March 2024.

FTX litigation has continued into 2026

Legal claims connected to FTX have remained active beyond the criminal cases against its former executives.

In May 2026, crypto.news reported that law firm Fenwick & West had agreed to pay $54 million to settle a class action brought by former FTX customers. The proposed settlement still required court approval when it was announced.

The customers accused Fenwick of helping establish corporate and legal structures that allowed FTX and Alameda to move and mix customer funds without adequate controls. According to filings cited in the report, the plaintiffs relied in part on testimony from Ellison, Wang, and former FTX engineering director Nishad Singh concerning improper loans, false statements, and the handling of customer money.

Singh reached his own supplemental settlement with the CFTC in April 2026. He agreed to pay $3.7 million in disgorgement and accepted a five-year trading ban and an eight-year registration ban, with the regulator also citing his cooperation with investigators.