Today in Crypto: Former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison is set to be released from federal custody after serving 440 days of a two-year sentence. Galaxy is preparing to launch a new hedge fund strategy spanning crypto tokens and traditional equities, while a senior White House crypto adviser said advancing a market structure bill will require compromises.
Former Alameda CEO to be released from US custody after 440 days
Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, is scheduled for release from federal custody after serving 440 days of a two-year sentence.
According to inmate records with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Ellison is expected to be released from the Residential Reentry Management field office in New York City on Wednesday, more than a year after she reported to prison in Danbury, Connecticut.
The former Alameda CEO was one of three executives linked to the defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX to serve prison time, along with former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried and former FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame.
After cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapsed in November 2022 amid reports of liquidity issues, Ellison, Bankman-Fried, Salame and executives Gary Wang and Nishad Singh were indicted on charges of fraud and money laundering. The Alameda CEO testified against Bankman-Fried at trial and accepted a plea deal for her cooperation, leading to a two-year sentence.
Ellison was initially scheduled to be released in February, which would still have been far short of her two-year sentence. However, many federal inmates are eligible for good-conduct credits. She was apparently also permitted to move to a reentry facility in October, serving her final months in custody in New York City.
Cointelegraph reached out to Ellison’s legal team, but a representative declined to comment.
Galaxy to launch $100 million hedge fund to bet on rising, falling crypto prices
Mike Novogratz’s digital asset company Galaxy is preparing to launch a $100 million hedge fund aimed at profiting from both rising and falling crypto prices.
The fund is set to launch in the first quarter and will be structured to take long and short positions across digital assets and traditional equities tied to financial infrastructure, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
Up to 30% of the fund’s capital will be allocated directly to crypto tokens, with the remainder deployed into financial services stocks expected to be influenced by digital asset regulation, blockchain adoption and technological change, per the report.
The fund has already secured $100 million in commitments from family offices, high-net-worth individuals and select institutional investors, though the company may open the strategy with additional capital. Galaxy confirmed to the FT that it will make a seed
Joe Armao, who will lead the new fund, said the market is entering a different phase. “The ‘up only’ part of this cycle is potentially coming to an end,” he told the outlet, while maintaining a positive outlook on major assets including Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL). Armao added that Bitcoin (BTC) remains relevant in an environment shaped by potential US Federal Reserve rate cuts, provided equities and gold remain resilient.
“Compromises will need to be made” on crypto bill: Trump advisor
Patrick Witt, the executive director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, said on Tuesday that a crypto market structure bill must be passed quickly while the Senate can still cut deals to advance it, but it will require concessions.
“There *will* be a crypto market structure bill — it’s a question of when, not if,” he said. “Assuming a multi-trillion-dollar industry will continue to operate indefinitely without a comprehensive regulatory framework is pure fantasy.”
“Let’s keep working to improve the product, recognizing that compromises will need to be made in order to get 60 votes in the Senate, but let’s not let perfect be the enemy of the good,” he added.
Witt said to “take advantage of the opportunity to pass a bill now, with a pro-crypto President” and Republican control of Congress, claiming that Democratic lawmakers would “write punitive legislation.”
The bill would lay out how US market regulators would police crypto, but some lobbyists, most notably Coinbase, are unhappy with provisions it argues are too restrictive on stablecoins and decentralized protocols.
