Caroline Ellison Net Worth: From Crypto Mogul to $11 Billion in Debt

Ellison was the CEO of Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency hedge fund founded by Sam Bankman-Fried. Alameda Research and FTX were technically separate entities, but, in reality, they were deeply intertwined sister companies.

In this article, we will tell you all about Ellison’s career, her work at Alameda Research, as well as her troubles with the law.

Breaking Down Caroline Ellison’s Net Worth in 2025

As part of her sentence, Caroline Ellison is required to forfeit over $11 billion to the United States government, which is planned to be redistributed to victims. Based on this, she will likely never be a financially free woman after she gets out of prison, especially since this amount cannot be wiped away through bankruptcy.

‘She will be placed on a payment plan, which will leave her with the ability to pay for the basic needs of daily living,’ a former federal prosecutor Mitchell Epner told DailyMail.com. ‘If she accumulates additional funds, the plan ordinarily would be adjusted to require her to pay more.’

Still, it is important to note that the actual payment of this amount may be subject to further legal proceedings. She is required to forfeit $11 billion, which is associated with the misappropriated debtor funds from FTX and Alameda. The figure has been mentioned in relation to her settlement, but it hasn’t been finalized in terms of payment details. The amount could change depending on the court’s final ruling.

The timing of the final ruling will depend on the resolution of the remaining matters related to asset forfeiture and restitution.

Caroline Ellison Net Worth: Early Life and Impressive Educational Background

Caroline Ellison was born in November 1994 in Boston. She spent her childhood in Cambridge and Newton, as is the eldest of three daughters of Sara Fisher Ellison and Glenn Ellison. Her parents are both renowned economists at MIT.

Caroline studied at Bigelow Middle School, where she and her younger sister, Ana, competed in the mathematics team coached by their father. The children were exposed to mathematics and economics early in life, and they studied Bayesian statistics (which is mostly taught in upper-level undergraduate courses) when they were in primary school.

After primary school, Ellison enrolled at Newton North High School, where she represented the United States in the 2011 International Linguistics Olympiad, receiving an award for best solution. She was also the captain of the high school math team, competing in the Greater Boston Math League and the Math Prize for Girls.

In 2008, Caroline Ellison competed in the American Mathematics Competitions and received top honors. She was also accepted into the MIT PRIMES after-school program in her senior year. In 2012, she graduated from Newton North High School with a National Merit Scholarship.

After college, Ellison enrolled at Stanford University to study mathematics. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 2016, scoring in the top 500 students in the 2013, 2014, and 2015 Putnam Competitions.

At Stanford University, Caroline Ellison was a member of the effective altruism club, where she was also elected vice president.

Caroline Ellison’s Life After Stanford and Career Successes

While still at Stanford, Caroline Ellison started interning at Jane Street, a proprietary trading firm based in New York City. In September 2016, after her graduation, she joined Jane Street full-time, working as the firm’s equities trader. At the time, her mentor was Sam Bankman-Fried. A year later, he left the firm to work as director of development at the Centre for Effective Altruism in Berkley.

Even though they stopped working together, Ellison and Bankman-Friend remained in contact after his departure. In February 2018, when she was visiting San Francisco, Caroline Ellison met her old friend for coffee. It was then that he pitched her on joining Alameda Research, his cryptocurrency hedge fund that he co-founded in November 2017 with Tara Mac Aulay. Ellison accepted the offer and joined Alameda Research only a month later.

Upon joining the business, Ellison already had more experience than most traders at Alameda Research. By October 2021, she was promoted to co-CEO alongside Sam Trabucco. In August 2022, Sam Trabucco decided to step down (just a few months before the collapse), effectively making Ellison the sole CEO of Alameda Research.

In the ElMomento podcast, Ellison shared her insights on her time at Alameda, speaking about the inner workings of the company and how it became a crucial player in the crypto space. You can watch the full video here:

Even though she held a high position at the company, Caroline Ellison reportedly received no equity in Alameda Research. She only held a minor stake in FTX of 0.5%. In 2023, when Caroline Ellison testified against Bankman-Fried, she shared that she asked for equity in the hedge fund as its CEO, but, he said “it was too complicated.”

In the end, she probably benefitted from taking a salary over equity as the business would soon become worthless. Ellison also shared that she took $1.3 million in personal loans from Alameda Research to invest in a startup. In comparison, the three other defendants siphoned billions of dollars in personal loans out of the business.

Gary Wang, the co-founder and former CTO of FTX, had a 16% stake in FTX and a 10% stake in Alameda Research. Nishad Singh, the former director of engineering at FTX, had 5% of the company. Finally, Sam Bankman-Fried owned more than half of FTX equity and about 90% of Alameda Research.

Ellison’s work at Alameda was highly acclaimed by the business press before the collapse. In November 2022, she and Trabucco were both listed on Forbes 30 Under 30. A year later, when the scandal occurred, the publication placed Ellison in its Hall of Shame.

The Scandal with FTX

In November 2022, CoinDesk raised concerns about Alameda Research’s balance sheet and its relationship with FTX. Following their report, Ellison said that the balance sheet information only included part of Alameda’s assets. She stated that the firm had over $10 billion of additional assets at the time.

However, the scandal rapidly destroyed the reputation of both FTX and Alameda. On November 6, 2022, Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s CEO, announced that his exchange would liquidate its FTT holdings due to recent revelations. This statement marked the beginning of the end for FTX and Alameda.

As part of Binance’s exit from FTX equity last year, Binance received roughly $2.1 billion USD equivalent in cash (BUSD and FTT). Due to recent revelations that have came to light, we have decided to liquidate any remaining FTT on our books. 1/4

— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) November 6, 2022

According to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, Caroline Ellison was in a video meeting with other employees of the company on November 9, 2022. In the meeting, she admitted that FTX was using customer money to help Alameda meet its liabilities.

Not long after, FTX, Alameda Research, and over 100 related companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. After the bankruptcy filing, Ellison was terminated from her position as Alameda Research CEO.

Caroline Ellison was facing significant legal trouble by the end of 2022. In the aftermath of FTX’s collapse, the SEC charged Ellison and Wang with defrauding investors.

In December 2022, she retained Stephanie Avakian, an attorney from the law firm WilmerHale, as her defense. On December 18, 2022, she pleaded guilty in the Southern District of New York to multiple charges, including:

• Conspiracy to commit wire fraud against FTX customers and Alameda Research lenders
• Conspiracy to commit wire fraud against Alameda lenders
• Conspiracy to commit commodities fraud
• Conspiracy to commit securities fraud
• Conspiracy to commit money laundering

On the same day, FTX co-founder Gary Wang also entered guilty pleas to several charges, detailed in the SEC’s tweet below.

The SEC today charged Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang for their roles in a multiyear scheme to defraud equity investors in the crypto trading platform FTX. Ellison and Wang are cooperating with the ongoing investigation.

— U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (@SECGov) December 22, 2022

That same month, Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas and extradited to the United States to face charges of fraud and conspiracy. His high-profile trial started on October 3, 2023, with Ellison testifying against her former partner and boss for a reduced sentence.

A transcript of Ellison’s plea hearing, made public on December 23, revealed that she admitted to Judge Ronnie Abrams that she had conspired with others to misappropriate billions of dollars from FTX customers while misleading investors and lenders.

Ellison also disclosed that Sam Bankman-Fried and other FTX executives had secretly received billions in loans from Alameda. As part of her plea agreement, she committed to paying restitution, with the final amount to be determined by the court.

In October 2023, Ellison testified as a key witness for the prosecution in Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial. She shared that the two had an on-and-off relationship for several years. When asked directly, “Did you commit financial crimes?” Ellison answered: “Yes. Sam-Bankman Fried directed me to commit these crimes. He was the one who set up these systems that allowed Alameda to take the money and he was the one who directed us to take customer money to repay our loans.”

Nearly a year later, on September 24, 2024, Ellison was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to forfeit $11 billion.

Ellison began to serve her sentence at a Connecticut prison in early November 2024. By December 2024, her sentence had been shortened by several months, which moved her expected release date to July 2026.

As for Sam Bankman-Fried, prosecutors initially sought a sentence of over 100 years, while his defense argued for only 6.5 years, claiming no financial harm had occurred. Fortunately for FTX’s creditors and users, the value of the cryptocurrencies lost in the collapse has since shot up. As a result, most creditors have been able to recover all of their lost funds, and in many cases more, with recovery rates ranging from 123% to 138%.

Despite the windfall for creditors, Bankman-Fried was convicted on all counts in November 2023 after a five-week trial.

A few months prior, in August 2023, Bankman-Fried’s bail was revoked after he shared Caroline Ellison’s personal writings with a reporter, leading to allegations of witness tampering. On March 28, 2024, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Ellison’s Earnings from Alameda

According to legal findings, Ellison was aware of FTX’s financial shortfalls as early as 2022, eighth months before its collapse. Around the time that Ellison estimated FTX had a shortfall of $10 billion, she allegedly paid herself a multimillion-dollar bonus instead of addressing the issue.

Ellison received a massive bonus of $22.5 million from Alameda, which she transferred to her own personal FTX account through complex transactions, later moving $10 million to her personal bank account to invest in an AI safety and research firm.

In 2021, Ellison allegedly awarded herself a $20 million bonus, from which she invested half in an unnamed startup and gave $100,000 to her parents. She also transferred $2 million to a donor-advised fund.

Specific details about her initial salary when Ellison joined Alameda are not publicly available. However, during her tenure as CEO, court documents indicate that she received around $6 million in compensation, including her salary of $200,000 a year and bonuses.

She held no stake in Alameda, and her stake in FTX was around 0.5%. Since the FTX bankruptcy filing, its equity has been effectively wiped out.

Caroline Ellison’s Other Investments, Assets, and Cryptos

Ellison hasn’t publicly disclosed significant investments in real estate or other assets beyond her financial activities related to Alameda and FTX. Her financial dealings primarily revolved around her compensation from Alameda, as well as her investment in an AI research firm.

According to Ellison’s mother, who wrote a letter to the court ahead of her daughter’s sentencing, Caroline Ellison was in the midst of writing a romance novel at the time. However, based on the court ruling, she won’t expect much, if any, profit from the book, even if it is successful.

As for cryptocurrency, Ellison has shared various perspectives on the matter through her personal social media accounts. On her X profile @carolinecapital, she identifies as a crypto trader and an effective altruist, so there is a strong chance that she owns at least some Bitcoin or top altcoins. However, she didn’t discuss any of her investments or trades on the platform, saying that the only purpose of her X account was “shitposting.”

PSA @ new followers: I do NOT intend to use this account to give away free alpha unlike some colleagues I could name. its SOLE purpose is for shitposting

— Caroline (@carolinecapital) April 6, 2021

Lessons to Learn from Caroline Ellison’s Story

Caroline Ellison’s story is a cautionary tale that highlights the consequences of making unethical decisions. Ellison’s extensive misconduct at Alameda and FTX demonstrates the destructive impact of poor ethical standards in leadership. Upholding integrity in your business decisions, especially if you are in a leadership position, is the key to maintaining trust – not to mention avoiding severe legal repercussions.

Ellison’s massive personal financial hit shows how overconfidence and risky decisions in business can lead to personal and professional downfall. This is a stark reminder to assess risks realistically – and never assume success is guaranteed.

However, Ellison’s biggest mistake wasn’t the risky investments that put Alameda in financial distress. It was her decision to misuse billions of dollars of customer funds to keep Alameda solvent. Misallocating resources for personal gain often has catastrophic consequences, not only for the individual but for all stakeholders involved.

Caroline Ellison was an overachiever with remarkable intellectual capabilities. However, she ultimately paid a steep price for her actions, including prison time, financial penalties, and irreversible harm to her reputation.

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