[8][9] On September 24, 2024, Ellison, a key government witness in the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was sentenced to two years in prison for her role in the scandal, which was one of the biggest in the history of the United States.
[10][11] U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan called Ellison’s cooperation in the case against SBF "very, very substantial", but said prison time was necessary due to the magnitude of the crime.
[12] According to an anonymous source cited by The Wall Street Journal in November 2022, Alameda Research owed $10 billion to FTX.
[17] At Bigelow Middle School,[18][19] Ellison and her younger sister Anna competed with the math team coached by their father.
[1][5][17] As a Newton North High School student, she represented the US in the 2011 International Linguistics Olympiad and received an honorable mention and an award for "best solution".
[31][32] In September 2016, Ellison joined Jane Street full-time as an equities trader in a cohort mentored by Sam Bankman-Fried, who left the firm a year later to serve as director of development at the Centre for Effective Altruism in Berkeley, California.
[41][42] According to anonymous sources cited by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, Ellison was in a video meeting with employees on 9 November 2022; she admitted there that FTX had used customer money to help Alameda meet its liabilities and that she, Bankman-Fried, and two other FTX executives, Nishad Singh and Gary Wang, were aware of the circumstances.
[43][44] Ellison was terminated from her position by John J. Ray III after FTX, Alameda Research, and more than 100 related companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
A transcript of her plea hearing was unsealed on December 23, revealing she had admitted to judge Ronnie Abrams that she and others conspired to steal billions of dollars from customers of FTX, while misleading its investors and lenders.
[51] Ellison told Judge Abrams that Sam Bankman-Fried and other FTX executives had received billions of dollars in secret loans from Alameda Research.
[58] In December 2024, The Washington Post reported Ellison's sentence has been reduced by a few months, with the release date now in July 2026.