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A comment on Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison After 440 Days.

Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by SilverElfin on Friday January 23, 2026 @10:33PM (#46740809)
> Without denying the Commission’s allegations, Ellison, Wang, and Singh consented to the entry of final judgments, subject to court approval, in which they agreed to be permanently enjoined from violating the antifraud provisions of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder and Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, and to 5-year conduct-based injunctions. Ellison also consented to a 10-year officer-and-director bar, and Wang and Singh consented to 8-year officer-and-director bars.

That’s a really light sentence for someone who defrauded people out of billions. Meanwhile many languish in prison for a lot less. It’s a two tier justice system, and the wealthy can get out of consequences with the right connections or donations.

Next up, Elizabeth Holmes - once her family donates enough to the MAGA PAC.

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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by xnx on Friday January 23, 2026 @11:02PM (#46740936)
> That’s a really light sentence for someone who defrauded people out of billions

I don't excuse anything that she did, but didn't 98% of investors get everything back with interest?

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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by bz_bz_bz on Friday January 23, 2026 @11:23PM (#46741037)
Investors? No. Customers? They were paid the cash value of their crypto holdings at the time of bankruptcy. Thanks to a massive bull run in crypto between bankruptcy and payout, customers were able to be paid back in “full” even with the fraud. However, when BTC is sitting at $60k and your missing BTC is being paid back at $17k, you’re not exactly going to be feeling giddy.
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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by nullc on Saturday January 24, 2026 @12:16AM (#46741280)
And that price at the time of the bankruptcy was artificially deflated by FTX dumping customer assets to try to cover up their fraud.
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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by kingofmen on Friday January 23, 2026 @11:18PM (#46741002)
They did, but not through any virtue or skill on her part. That was just the plain luck of Bitcoin happening to go way way up before the bankruptcy estate paid out using what it had, and the court that sentenced her couldn't know that would happen and if it somehow had, should not have taken it into account. You wouldn't advocate a lighter sentence for murder if the bullet had miraculously been struck by lightning on its way to the target's skull and thereby missed.
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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by decimalenough on Friday January 23, 2026 @11:20PM (#46741016)
Well, actually you would, because that would change it from murder to attempted murder.
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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by estearum on Friday January 23, 2026 @11:19PM (#46741011)
Only by accident of BTC's appreciation while the fraud+bankruptcy were underway. Not sure that should be a mitigating factor.
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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by decimalenough on Friday January 23, 2026 @11:19PM (#46741010)
Maybe, on paper, some day in the indeterminate future, and likely without interest.

For comparison, MtGox went tits up twelve years ago in 2014 and they're still figuring out repayments for its BTC holders, which is both a hell of a lot simpler than FTX's grab bag of own tokens etc and has gone up a zillion percent since 2014.

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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by arduanika on Saturday January 24, 2026 @12:06AM (#46741233)
The customers were not fully repaid, except in an artificial accounting sense using post-crash marks. Nevertheless, the recovery was far more successful than most people expected at the time.
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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by cosmicgadget on Friday January 23, 2026 @11:18PM (#46741001)
I wanna say that was the FTX story, not Alameda.
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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by arduanika on Saturday January 24, 2026 @12:02AM (#46741215)
It was all one company in the end, through co-mingling and lack of controls.
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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by paulpauper on Friday January 23, 2026 @11:53PM (#46741179)
they got back 100% at a lower price, around 20k per btc I think.
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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by moralestapia on Friday January 23, 2026 @11:19PM (#46741008)
Criminal law deals with intents not with outcomes.

Hence why "attempted murder" is a thing.

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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by tim333 on Saturday January 24, 2026 @08:40AM (#46743425)
Smaller depositors (<$50k) got back 118% of the dollar value of their holdings at the time of the bankruptcy. I was one of those and got paid out a few months ago. The larger depositors and investors were still haggling in court last time I checked over who gets what.
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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by paulpauper on Friday January 23, 2026 @11:54PM (#46741185)
That’s a really light sentence for someone who defrauded people out of billions.

She profited very little compared to the others and was invaluable for the case

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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by moralestapia on Friday January 23, 2026 @10:34PM (#46740814)
100%

Even if you "cooperate", that shouldn't be an 80-90% sentence reduction. She was part of the fraud, consciously, for years!

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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by cortesoft on Friday January 23, 2026 @11:12PM (#46740968)
Even if we all agree this is true, you still have to think practically. If we don't give a big incentive to turn on your co-conspirators, no one will turn and you might not be able to convict any of them.
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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by moralestapia on Friday January 23, 2026 @11:17PM (#46740988)
>Can someone think of the criminals?

SBF was screwed with or without Ellison's testimony.

It should be the other way around. You get 10 years. You don't want to cooperate? Great! You get another 10.

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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by paulpauper on Friday January 23, 2026 @11:58PM (#46741203)
SBF got no more than 25. there is no way she would have gotten more than that.
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Re:Caroline Ellison Former Alameda CEO Released from Prison ... by edmundsauto on Saturday January 24, 2026 @12:23AM (#46741302)
As I understand it, intent matters a lot, and that is typically through the testimony of people who had access to SBF in an environment where he was comfortable speaking candidly.

Those people are often accomplices. Sometimes the medium large fish get off if they chop up the big fish.

There are the way things should be, and there are the way things are.

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