Binance and FTX Make Top $50M Bids for Bankrupt Lender Voyager Digital

UTC by Darya Rudz · 3 min read
Binance and FTX Make Top $50M Bids for Bankrupt Lender Voyager Digital
Photo: Depositphotos

On September 29, the final results of the auction for Voyager Digital assets will be revealed and the winner of the bids competition will be announced. 

Digital asset exchanges Binance and FTX have been leading the bids competition for the assets of crypto lending platform Voyager Digital which has gone bankrupt. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the bid offered by Binance totaled about $50 million, slightly higher than the competing bid from the FTX exchange.

Bids Made by Binance and FTX

Voyager Digital started an auction to liquidate its assets at the New York office of Voyager’s investment banker Moelis & Company on September 13. According to Voyager’s lawyers, as many as 88 interested parties had reached out to the firm. Among them were Binance, FTX, as well as Wave Financial crypto investment manager, and CrossTower trading platform. On September 29, the final results and the winner will be announced.

While Voyager is liquidating its assets, its customers whose funds have been frozen are hoping that this auction will help them get their money back. Since July, they have been unable to access their funds as the crypto market downturn forced Voyager Digital into suspending withdrawals and then resulted in bankruptcy.

Notably, back in July, FXT also offered early liquidity to Voyager customers. However, Voyager rejected the offer, calling it a “low-ball bid dressed up as a white knight rescue” that only benefits FTX.

Now, FTX is competing with Binance in the hunt for Voyager Digital.

Voyager Digital’s Bankruptcy

Voyager Digital has been a cryptocurrency brokerage firm that provided access to over 50 tokens and coins. At its prosperity point, the company was boasting 3.5 million users and $5.9 billion in assets. Until this year, Voyager’s future looked bright. However, the crypto winter placed Voyager in trouble. The company first started facing liquidity issues in June, and things got worse when its debtor, Three Arrows Capital (3AC), one of the biggest hedge funds in the space defaulted in repaying its $650 million loans.

As a result, Voyager Digital issued a notice of default to 3AC. According to Voyager Digital’s statement, the company borrowed as much as $350 million in USDC and 15,250 BTC (approximately $324 million at that time). Further, starting from July 1, the lender froze the assets of its customers. And days later, the company filed for bankruptcy protection in New York.

According to Voyager’s bankruptcy filing, it has over 100,000 creditors and $1.1 billion in total loans outstanding. In April this year, Voyager’s total assets totaled a little over $5 billion while its total liabilities stood at $4.9 billion.

A small relief came with an unsecured loan facility worth roughly $500 million from Alameda Research, an equity group led by Sam Bankman-Fried. However,  it did not rescue the company from collapse.

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