Market News

KEY POINTS

• Digital currency lender Voyager Digital has been thrown back to square one after FTX, which had initially agreed to acquire the firm, filed for bankruptcy.
• Crypto platforms Binance and CrossTower both said they plan to submit revised bids for the company.
• Binance has also set up a $1 billion fund aimed at supporting ailing companies in the industry.

Voyager said it has roughly $1.3 billion of crypto on its platform and holds over $350 million in cash on behalf of customers at New York’s Metropolitan Commercial Bank.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Binance and other crypto firms are preparing takeover offers for beleaguered digital currency lender Voyager Digital after FTX, which had initially agreed to acquire the firm, filed for bankruptcy.

Voyager filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which seeks to restructure troubled firms as viable business operations, in July after crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital defaulted on a loan from the company worth $670 million.

Voyager was set to be acquired by FTX’s American unit, FTX U.S., for $1.4 billion after Sam Bankman-Fried’s firm won in a U.S. bankruptcy auction. It was then thrown back to square one after FTX itself filed for bankruptcy after experiencing its own bank run-style surge in withdrawals.

Customers of Voyager have been unable to get their funds out since it paused withdrawals amid an industry-wide liquidity crisis.

This week, Binance confirmed reports that its U.S. subsidiary Binance.US plans to make an offer to rescue Voyager from collapse. Binance.US had previously offered to buy Voyager as part of its insolvency auction. 

Speaking on Bloomberg, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said Binance.US “will make another bid for Voyager now, given FTX is no longer able to follow through on that commitment.”

Zhao has also set up a $1 billion fund aimed at supporting ailing companies in the industry.

CrossTower, a crypto and NFT trading platform, was among the parties that initially competed to buy Voyager in the court auction. The company says it plans to make a renewed offer for the company — though details are scant for now.

CrossTower is “submitting a revised bid, one it feels will benefit both the customers and the wider crypto community,” a CrossTower spokesperson told CNBC via email.

CrossTower is also planning its own separate industry recovery fund. The firm told CNBC it doesn’t view the fund as “competing” with Binance’s.

“This is about stabilizing an industry, regaining trust and rebuilding what is arguably the future of finance,” the CrossTower spokesman said.

“We will do so, with funds and talent, and we will collaborate with governments and policy makers and promote transparency. One venture fund did not build the technology industry and one recovery fund will not rebuild this one.”

Meanwhile, Wave Financial is also planning to make a fresh offer to acquire Voyager, after having initially lost out to FTX, according to a report from London’s Financial News newspaper.