After the US government approved the bulk of the deal, Binance.US has now canceled its acquisition of Voyager Digital. “Today we received a letter from Binance.US terminating the asset purchase agreement. While this development is disappointing, our Chapter 11 plan allows for direct distribution of cash and crypto to customers via the Voyager platform”, Voyage said in a Tweet on Tuesday.
Binance.US addressed the reasons behind its decision to terminate the Voyage acquisition. The exchange cited the “hostile and uncertain regulatory climate” in the US as the primary factor: “Binance.US has made the difficult decision to exercise its right to terminate the asset purchase agreement with Voyager. While our hope throughout this process was to help Voyager’s customers access their crypto in kind, the hostile and uncertain regulatory climate could affect the entire American business community”.
A committee representing those creditors in bankruptcy proceedings tweeted that it was deeply disappointed with the news and was investigating potential claims against Binance.US.
The initial terms allowed Binance.US to unilaterally cancel the agreement within 4 months. However, in a recent legal filing, Voyager’s lawyers warned that the deal’s failure could cost its more than 1 million creditors an extra $100 million.
The Binance.US deal to buy Voyage was approved by the court last month, with a valuation of $1.3 billion. If the deal goes through, customers could see a 73% recovery under the proposal, Voyager lawyers say, although that percentage would drop to 48% if claims from bankrupt crypto exchange FTX and its sibling company Alameda Research are successful. 97% of creditors voted for the Binance.US – Voyager deal.
Binance.US proposed to rescue Voyager last December and was approved by a New York court in March of this year. However, both the SEC and the US Department of Justice tried to halt the deal, arguing that Binance.US is an unregistered stock exchange and its branch shows signs of violating US law.
Some believe that Binance.US’s termination of its agreement with Voyager has something to do with an upcoming deal with CFTC, which has sued parent company Binance for allegedly violating derivative rules. But Zhao then only responded with a “shrug” emoji.