CFTC closed FTX cases against Ellison and Wang with multiyear bans

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced on August 19, 2026 that supplemental federal-court orders had resolved its civil enforcement actions against Caroline Ellison, the former chief executive of Alameda Research, and Zixiao “Gary” Wang, a co-founder of Alameda and FTX.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York signed the supplemental consent orders on August 18, 2026. They required both defendants to continue cooperating with the CFTC and imposed multiyear restrictions on their participation in regulated commodity markets. Their public announcement on August 19 closed two of the agency’s remaining individual cases arising from the collapse of FTX and Alameda.

What the orders imposed

Ellison received a five-year trading ban and a 10-year ban on CFTC registration. Wang received a five-year trading ban and an eight-year registration ban. The restriction periods were measured from December 23, 2022, when the court entered the initial consent orders, rather than from the August 2026 supplemental orders.

Those initial orders found Ellison liable on both fraud counts brought against her in the CFTC’s amended complaint and Wang liable on the single fraud count charged against him. They also permanently enjoined both defendants from violating the cited antifraud provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations.

The supplemental orders completed the remedies phase that the 2022 orders had left open. They did not reverse the earlier liability findings or permanent injunctions. Continued cooperation also remained an enforceable obligation under the new orders.

Why the CFTC sought no additional money

The CFTC stated that it was not seeking restitution, disgorgement or civil monetary penalties from Ellison or Wang “at this time.” That qualification matters: the orders resolved these CFTC actions without adding a new monetary award, but they did not declare that the broader financial consequences of the FTX collapse had been satisfied.

The agency attributed its position partly to the defendants’ cooperation in the CFTC investigation and related proceedings. It also cited their guilty pleas in parallel criminal cases, including pleas to conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, and an $11.020 billion criminal forfeiture order for which they were jointly and severally liable.

That $11.020 billion figure describes the forfeiture judgment in the criminal proceedings. It is not a measure of money collected by August 19, 2026, customer recoveries, bankruptcy distributions or the value of assets then available. The CFTC announcement supplied no recovery rate or payment timetable.

Why the resolution mattered

The orders marked an institutional endpoint for the CFTC’s cases against two cooperating members of FTX’s senior leadership. They also showed how cooperation could affect the remedy sought after liability had already been established: the agency preserved trading and registration restrictions while declining to request another monetary sanction.

For the digital-asset industry, the action reinforced that misconduct involving crypto trading platforms could support remedies under the Commodity Exchange Act even when customer recovery proceeded through separate criminal and bankruptcy channels. It also separated individual regulatory sanctions from the much larger process of resolving claims associated with FTX and Alameda.

The consent orders should not be treated as a market-wide crypto rule or a judicial precedent produced after a contested trial. They were negotiated resolutions applying to Ellison and Wang. As of August 19, 2026, the orders closed the CFTC actions against those two defendants; they did not resolve every civil, criminal, bankruptcy or customer claim connected to FTX.