DoJ Pushes Against Voyager-Binance Deal With Late Appeal

Naga

Binance.US $1.02 billion acquisition of Voyager’s businesses was opposed by the U.S. Department of Justice via a late filing on Thursday roughly 24 hours after a New York bankruptcy judge approved the deal.

Court documents show that the DoJ’s Trustee Office submitted a motion against the agreement even as Binance and Voyager entered the latter stages of the business deal. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under Gary Gensler also stood the move.

Per reports, the federal regulator threw unregistered securities claims at Voyager’s VGX token. Gensler’s SEC also scrutinized Binance’s financial ability to complete the deal and repay stranded customers.

New York’s Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) accused the crypto lender of onboarding users without investor protection by operating without a license in the state of New York. Attorney General Letitia James alleged that the crypto company was still running an illegal business as of February 2023.

Regardless, New York bankruptcy Judge Michael Wiles ruled to approve the deal despite pushbacks from federal and state regulators. Judge Wiles noted that the U.S. Bankruptcy code “doesn’t contemplate an endless period of time” and creditors need to be prioritized to dispel uncertainty.

“…in some cases, their life savings, so we have to take some kind of action”, Judge Wiles said approving Binance’s acquisition of the crypto lender’s assets. At press time, the majority of Voyager’s creditors also back the deal that would offer up to 73% recovery of assets for customers.

Voyager Liquidates $56 Million in ERC-20 Tokens

On-chain data indicate that Voyager liquidated millions in ERC-20 tokens in a single day. The crypto lender sold $42 million worth of Ether (ETH), $11 million of its own VGX coin, $4.4 million in meme coin giant Shiba Inu (SHIB), and around $1 million of Chainlink’s LINK token.

Binance.US, Coinbase, and Wintermute were among the trading venues where Voyager sold crypto holdings. The bankrupt lender also offloaded coins in over-the-counter (OTC) trades as well.

2/ #Voyager currently holding $757.8M worth of assets, including:

– 459.8M $USDC
– 102,306 $ETH ($157.7M)
– 122.4M $VGX ($61.7M)
– 4T $SHIB ($44.2M)
– 1.28M $LINK ($8.5M)
– 8.95M $MANA ($4.9M)
– 6.6M $FTM ($2.4M)
– 454,805 $APE ($2M)
– 3.44M $SAND ($2M)
– 3.9M $ENJ ($1.55M)
… pic.twitter.com/tcgTMQszgY

Source: Read Full Article