- Binance.US has pulled out of its takeover of Voyager Digital
- The two companies revealed the news yesterday, which Voyager called “disappointing”
- The takeover was stayed by a U.S. court following the CFTC’s recent lawsuit against Binance
Binance.US has pulled out of its takeover of Voyager Digital following the charges laid against it by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) last month. Voyager tweeted yesterday that it “received a letter from Binance.US terminating the asset purchase agreement”, which was all but telegraphed after an eleventh-hour filing in the wake of the CFTC charges against Binance.US’s parent company asked the deal to be halted. The news will be a bitter blow to Voyager creditors, who had seen Binance.US clear multiple hurdles and get almost to the finish line with the takeover.
Voyager’s Takeover Saga
Voyager’s takeover has been somewhat cursed, with the original buyer, FTX, collapsing two months after a deal was agreed, and now Binance.US pulling out five months later. Voyager collapsed last summer and following 10 months of struggle seemed to be on the verge of a takeover, with the bankruptcy judge going as far as agreeing to an asset transfer between Voyager and Binance.US.
However, the filing last month of a multi-party lawsuit by the CFTC against Binance, its CEO Changpeng Zhao, and former chief compliance officer Samuel Lim, caused the U.S. government to file for an emergency stay, which was granted. The issue has almost certainly played a part in Binance.US’s decision to pull out of the deal, although it failed to explain why in its own tweet on the matter:
https://t.co/AZwoBOgsqS has made the difficult decision to exercise its right to terminate the asset purchase agreement with Voyager.
While our hope throughout this process was to help Voyager’s customers access their crypto in kind, the hostile and uncertain regulatory climate…
— Binance.US 🇺🇸 (@BinanceUS) April 25, 2023
Voyager said that, while the news was “disappointing”, its Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan dictates that it will “move swiftly to return value to customers via direct distributions”. This value will almost certainly be less than creditors would have received had the platform been rescued, and it now seems that, unless a new buyer steps in at the last minute, Voyager will disappear for good.
