Binance To Resubmit Bankrupt Crypto Company Voyager’s Offer. The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance US, is preparing to bid on bankrupt lending platform Voyager Digital, according to a person familiar with the plans.
Quoting Coindesk, Thursday, November 17, 2022, the previous auction, which concluded around the end of last September, saw the now defunct FTX emerge as the “white knight”, winning against rivals Wave Financial and Binance.
At the time, CoinDesk also reported that Binance’s bid for US-based Voyager had closed due to national security concerns.
Following FTX’s announcement last week to file for bankruptcy, Voyager said it had reopened the bidding process for the company, and was in active discussions with alternative bidders. Wave Financial and trading platform Cross Tower are reportedly up and running.
Voyager did not provide comment.
Voyager native token VGX jumped as much as 50 percent after the CoinDesk report was published, at the time of writing VGX was up more than 40 percent at USD 0.4066.
Thomas Braziel, managing partner at investment firm 507 Capital said matters were complicated by the fact Voyager would be filing a claim against the FTX estate for breach of contract.
“The problem is the claim will only be against FTX US. I’m afraid a lot of collateral will be held in trust. So any cause of action they take could end up behind all the customers. And the problem is if the customer isn’t going to be made whole, then what’s the value?” your unsecured claim? It will be worth bupkis,” Braziel said in an interview, quoted from Coindesk, Thursday, November 17, 2022.
Earlier this week, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) said the exchange is setting up an industry recovery fund to help rebuild the industry.
“Binance doesn’t want to be the ‘white knight’ of crypto’. There’s no Luke Skywalker or Darth Vaders in the business. These are the companies, with the biggest downsides as market leaders, looking around to see where we can help boost the industry via a goose event black,” said Binance’s Head of Communications, Patrick Hillmann, in a message to CoinDesk.
Previously, due to the large number of crime cases and the collapse of big players in the crypto industry, the security of crypto investors as consumers was threatened. Responding to this, Binance’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao, said that protecting crypto consumers is the responsibility of all parties.
“The crypto industry has a role to protect consumers, not only the regulator, it’s not the regulator’s duty 100 percent to protect consumers. So consumer protection is everyone’s responsibility,” said Zhao at the B20 Summit Indonesia, in Bali, Monday (14/11/2022).
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Binance To Resubmit Bankrupt Crypto Company Voyager’s Offer. Not only that, Zhao added that consumers are also responsible for protecting themselves by educating themselves about crypto.
“We from Binance are not only an exchanger, but we also provide facilities for people to access crypto. We have Coinmarketcap as a place for crypto information,” said Zhao.
As for regulations regarding crypto, Zhao said that the industry currently needs regulations to reduce various crimes.
“Everyone has a responsibility to provide protection to consumers. We also need a lot of regulations from regulators,” Zhao continued.
Bosbinance said that currently many regulators equate crypto exchanges with banks, even though according to Zhao the two are very different.
“Currently there are many regulations that emphasize KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti Money Laundering), many regulators think exchanges operate like banks, even though the systems are very different,” said Zhao.
Zhao also suggested that industry players be more transparent and continue to work with regulators around the world so that the ecosystem in the crypto industry will get better in the future.
Previously, in the midst of a liquidity crunch that crypto exchange FTX was experiencing and a failed acquisition from Binance to help. Now, FTX is facing US regulators who are looking into whether FTX is potentially mishandling customer funds on its platform.
Reporting from Yahoo Finance, Friday (11/11/2022), the US Securities Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are investigating FTX’s relationship with its sister entity Alameda Research as well as with US FTX.
This investigation has not been disclosed to the public, but began months ago as an investigation into US FTX and its crypto-lending activities, according to a Bloomberg report. However, this investigation was expanded in relation to a new case that befell FTX.
Alameda Research, a crypto trading firm run by FTX head Sam Bankman-Fried, was caught in the eye of the storm this week when leaked balance sheets revealed an unusually close relationship with FTX via the exchange’s native FTT token.
Changpeng Zhao, chief executive of Binance, sent shockwaves on Twitter when he wrote his company, as an early investor in FTX and a large holder of its token, will liquidate its position on FTT.
Since that series of Tweets, FTT Coin holders have been selling their tokens in droves. Zhao claims Bankman-Fried then called him, asking Binance to save his troubled company.
Binance and FTX on Tuesday, November 8, 2022 both revealed they had signed a non-binding letter of intent providing an option to purchase FTX pending due diligence.
But on Wednesday, Binance announced it was backing out of the acquisition deal due to several factors.
“Following company due diligence and recent news reports regarding mishandled customer funds and suspected US agency investigations,” Binance wrote on Twitter.
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Binance To Resubmit Bankrupt Crypto Company Voyager’s Offer. Binance later noted they wanted to help FTX customers but the issues were beyond Binance’s control or ability to help. The largest crypto exchange further said whenever a major crypto business fails, it is the retail investors who suffer.
