Voyager Cleared to Sell Crypto Customer Accounts to Binance

Steven Church, Bloomberg News

The Voyager Digital website on a smartphone in the Brooklyn borough of New York, US, on Friday, July 8, 2022. Crypto broker Voyager Digital Ltd. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection just weeks after getting a lifeline from billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research, citing market volatility and the collapse of a hedge fund it had lent money to. Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Voyager Digital Ltd. won court approval to sell its crypto platform to Binance.US for $20 million as part of Voyager’s plan to liquidate in bankruptcy.

Under terms of the deal, about $1 billion worth of assets that Voyager holds on behalf of customers would be taken over by Binance, which will then give account holders the option to cash out. The deal cannot close until US Bankruptcy Judge Michael E. Wiles approves the related bankruptcy liquidation plan.

Customers will have the right to vote on the Binance deal in the coming weeks when they are asked to consider supporting the liquidation plan, Voyager lawyer Christine A. Okike said during a court hearing held by telephone Tuesday.

Wiles overruled objections from federal regulators and a handful of states, which questioned whether Binance was financially stable enough to close the proposed transaction and how the company would fulfill its pledge to cash out customers. Once minor wording changes are made, Wiles said he would sign a final order allowing Voyager to enter a contract with Binance and to send creditors an outline of the deal and the liquidation plan for a vote.

The approval brings Voyager one step closer to shutting down after it became an early victim of the severe drop in crypto currency values that began earlier this year.

Voyager was founded in 2018 as a crypto trading platform and grew rapidly, reaching a peak of 3.5 million users and more than $5.9 billion of cryptocurrency assets, according to court records. It currently has about 1.2 million customer and $1 billion in assets, which are frozen on the platform until the bankruptcy case ends.

The company originally had a deal to sell its platform to FTX that would have brought Voyager about $51 million in cash, before that crypto firm filed its own bankruptcy amid fraud allegations. After the FTX deal fell apart, Binance made its offer, which would bring in $20 million.

The bankruptcy is Voyager Digital Holdings Inc., 22-10943, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan).