Binance.US announced the termination of its planned takeover of bankrupt cryptocurrency broker Voyager Digital Holdings less than a week after US federal regulators tried to obstruct the deal in court.
After a long struggle and numerous regulatory interventions, Binance.US wrote on Twitter (the social network is blocked in Russia) that the aggressive and uncertain regulatory environment in the United States has created an unstable atmosphere affecting businesses across America.
In July 2022, Voyager declared bankruptcy and its assets were sold at an auction in September. FTX.US won, but as the platform itself went bankrupt, the sale had to be repeated in December. This time, the Binance.US platform won and offered creditors to return 73% of the amount owed to them if they accepted the offer. Almost all creditors of the bankrupt platform supported the scheme.
However, on April 25, Binance.US sent Voyager a four-paragraph legal notice stating that the agreement was not legally binding, without an explanation for its cancellation.
Binance.US has faced obstruction from US regulators, including the Texas Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the US Federal Trade Commission, who have expressed their disagreement. Texas regulators have doubts about the independence of Binance.US from "global" Binance, which does not legally transact with our customers, and the SEC has accused the exchange of trading in unregistered securities.
Voyager started in 2018 as a cryptocurrency trading platform and has developed rapidly, reaching 3.5 million customers and around $6bn in cryptocurrency assets. Last June, it faced an inability to repay a $350 million loan from its main client, Three Arrows Capital fund. In their bankruptcy filing, they pointed out that their liabilities and assets were worth between $1bn and $10bn and that more than 100,000 clients had unsettled claims against them.
