October 22nd, 2020 at 10:46 am UTC · 3 min read
LGO, a leading institutional cryptocurrency exchange in Europe is merging with the European operations of Voyager Digital (VYGR:CN), a leading agency broker of cryptocurrency in the US, to bring the industry leading Voyager Platform to the European retail cryptocurrency market.
LGO is one of the largest institutional-focused cryptocurrency businesses in Europe with more than 60 institutional clients. LGO is a member of the FrenchTech120 and a founding member of ADAN, the most important cryptocurrency lobbying group in France.
Voyager, founded by long term capital markets and technology veterans Steve Ehrlich, Gaspard de Dreuzy, Philip Eytan and Oscar Salazar (an Uber cofounder), is a publicly traded, licensed crypto-asset broker bringing deeper liquidity, broader market access and effective trading to digital assets traders and investors. Voyager, who recently announced its advisory relationship with NBA Hall of Famer, Tracy McGrady, is now the largest agency provider of crypto assets in the United States and one of the fastest growing players in the crypto space in North America. Voyager is publicly listed in Canada under the symbol CSE:VYGR.
This transaction allows Voyager to expand into the European retail market, where LGO holds a Virtual Asset Service Provider registration with the AMF (French Financial Markets regulator). All activities will be operated under the Voyager brand.
Steve Ehrlich, Co-founder and CEO of Voyager Digital said,
“LGO is the logical partner for Voyager to work with to expand the business into Europe. Hugo and the LGO team have a great reputation and have built a regulatory compliant company, which is core to Voyager’s model. We are also excited about the opportunity to create an improved token to bring greater utility to our loyal community base.”
As part of the merger, the next version of the Voyager token will be minted which will allow holders of the VGX and LGO token holders to swap into the new token. The holder ownership percentages will be commensurate with the existing fully diluted market caps of the tokens. The new token will include decentralized finance features such as community governance, as well as advanced utility including staking with an initial 7% interest, cash back rewards on trading on the Voyager platform, debit card benefits, interest boosters, reduction of withdrawal fees, and more, all on a global basis.
A more detailed plan and timeline will be released in the near future. The token swap is anticipated to happen before the end of 2020.
Hugo Renaudin, Co-Founder and CEO of LGO stated,
“We’re very excited to join forces with Voyager and to build a global agency brokerage leader. Both LGO and Voyager share the same ambition of building services of excellence for customers in a secure regulated structure. We’re particularly proud of the structure of the deal, where both LGO and VGX token holders are well represented. ”
LGO will discontinue its dedicated institutional exchange on October 31, 2020 and transfer its assets to Voyager by the end of 2020. LGO’s clients and relationships will be transferred to Voyager, which also recently announced the launch of its institutional account offering. LGO CEO Hugo Renaudin and its Chairman Frederic Montagnon will help grow Voyager’s European business as advisors of the Company.