TL;DR:
- Ellison is set for release Jan. 21, 2026, roughly 10 months early, after community confinement since October 2025.
- She pleaded guilty in December 2022, testified on commingled funds, and was ordered to forfeit $11 billion and serve two years; Bankman-Fried got 25.
- Ray said her help recovered hundreds of millions; she faces a 10-year officer/director ban and supervision, while Bankman-Fried seeks Trump clemency and is slated for September 2044 release.
Caroline Ellison, former co-CEO of Alameda Research, is scheduled to leave federal custody on Jan. 21, 2026, according to US Bureau of Prisons records. The date lands about 10 months ahead of her full two-year sentence, and the clock itself is the headline in the FTX saga. Ellison, 31, has been in community confinement since October 2025 after a transfer from a federal prison in Connecticut, Business Insider previously reported.
Markets are parsing what this means for accountability: early release reads like cooperation plus good-conduct credits rather than a rewrite of the facts. The milestone closes one chapter, but it also reopens scrutiny on how quickly consequences diverge for insiders. For compliance teams, the message is simple: cooperation materially changes outcomes.
JUST IN:
Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, is scheduled to be released from federal custody on January 21, 2026 pic.twitter.com/WkStCGH8E4
— WF (@WhaleFUD) December 25, 2025
Release timeline and the legal aftershocks
Ellison pleaded guilty in December 2022 to fraud and conspiracy linked to the collapse of FTX, a blowup that produced billions of customer losses and became a defining digital-asset scandal. In court, her cooperation translated into courtroom leverage, laying out how Alameda and FTX commingled customer funds and concealed financial shortfalls.
That testimony helped secure Sam Bankman-Fried’s conviction on multiple fraud counts, followed by a 25-year prison sentence. Ellison’s own sentence came in September 2024, when US District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered her to forfeit $11 billion and serve a two-year prison term beginning in November. The contrast is not about innocence, but about negotiated accountability. Her timeline now becomes a reference point for how fast the system processes crypto-era failures.
The early date appears to reflect good-conduct credits and the measurable value prosecutors and the bankruptcy estate attached to her cooperation. Ahead of sentencing, CEO John J. Ray III said Ellison provided “valuable assistance” that helped recover hundreds of millions of dollars for creditors, supporting ongoing efforts to return funds. Post-release, the operating perimeter shrinks, with a 10-year ban on serving as an officer or director of public companies or crypto exchanges and a period of supervised release limiting regulated-business roles.
Meanwhile, Bankman-Fried is seeking clemency from US President Donald Trump and claims the case was politically motivated; Bureau of Prisons records list his release in September 2044. The saga is moving from trial to long-tail governance with reputations still recalibrating.
