Voyager Digital Ltd., a crypto trading platform, has announced its plans to liquidate its assets and wind down its operations. The decision comes after the company failed to find a buyer for its business, despite months of ongoing talks with several buyers.
After failing to reach an agreement on a sale to either FTX US or Binance.US, lawyers for Voyager Digital say the bankrupt crypto lender will self-liquidate its assets and wind down operations.
Voyager Digital crypto journey comes to an end
According to a Friday filing, Voyager Digital will liquidate and restore to consumers a number of digital assets on the platform that cannot be removed. Major cryptocurrencies like as Algorand (ALGO), Celo (CELO), and Avalanche (AVAX) are among them.
The announcement, filed in a court filing on Friday, comes just ten days after Binance US abruptly backed out of a $1 billion deal to buy Voyager Digital’s assets when the US government intervened to prohibit part of it. Prior to the agreement with Binance US, the crypto lender made a similar offer to FTX. When FTX went bankrupt alongside Voyager in November, the first agreement was canceled.
According to the filing, Voyager’s customers will receive an initial recovery of 36% of their crypto holdings, which is an appallingly low recovery rate when compared to both estimates of their recovery rate of 72-73% if either of the acquisition plans were successful, as well as recovery estimates for creditors of other bankrupt crypto platforms. Celsius’ creditors, for example, are expected to collect approximately 70% of their shares.
According to the court filing, a number of other significant cryptocurrencies on the platform will not be liquidated but would instead be refunded to users in digital form, albeit at a recovery rate of roughly 36%. Aave (AAVE), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and 65 other major crypto assets are among them.
Former clients will be reimbursed soon, the failing firm announced on Twitter. “We are hopeful that initial distributions will begin within the next few weeks,” the company said.
Binance.US, the crypto exchange Binance’s sibling firm that purports to be controlled separately, backed out of a $1.3 billion restructuring plan to buy Voyager assets last week. It noted the United States “hostile and uncertain regulatory climate.”
What’s the way forward for creditors?
Last year, digital asset broker Voyager went bankrupt after exposing huge exposure to failing crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital.
Since then, the corporation has been figuring out ways to return assets to investors who employed its services. Cryptocurrency exchange FTX had planned to purchase Voyager’s troubled assets before going bankrupt in a highly publicized and unexpected bankruptcy that rocked the crypto world.
The founder and former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, has since been charged with 13 criminal offenses and is currently on trial.
According to the filing, the recovery rate could increase if defunct crypto trading firm Alameda Research’s quest to recoup $446 million from Voyager Digital’s estate fails. In addition to reserving $446 million of the estate’s assets for the Alameda suit, Voyager Digital’s attorneys are retaining an additional $259.6 million for litigation fees, administrative claims, and various other “holdbacks.”
Creditors who have any of the 67 “supported” tokens, including BTC and ETH, locked on the site will be able to withdraw the authorized percentage of their crypto immediately. Voyager will sell any of the 38 “unsupported tokens,” including SOL and ALGO, and refund customers in USDC, a stablecoin.
Objections to the planned liquidation procedure must be filed with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) by May 15 at 4 p.m. EST.
