Key facts
- Former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder Gary Wang received five-year trading bans from the CFTC.
- Ellison and Wang also received 10-year and eight-year registration bans, respectively.
- US prosecutors opposed a motion to dismiss charges against US soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke.
- Van Dyke allegedly made over $400,000 using prediction market bets with nonpublic information.
- The charges against Van Dyke involve claims that event contracts are 'swaps' under the CFTC's purview.
In recent crypto legal developments, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder Gary Wang have received five-year trading bans from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The consent orders, entered by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), also imposed a 10-year registration ban on Ellison and an eight-year ban on Wang. These civil penalties stem from their roles in the collapse of the crypto exchange and reflect their cooperation with the CFTC's investigations. Separately, US prosecutors have opposed a motion to dismiss charges against Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a US soldier accused of using nonpublic information to profit over $400,000 from event contracts on the prediction market platform Polymarket. Van Dyke's motion argued that event contracts should not be considered 'swaps' under the CFTC's purview, a claim the government contends is based on speculative assertions inappropriate for the motion-to-dismiss stage.