Voyager Digital, a bankrupt crypto lender, announced on Tuesday via a tweet that Binance.US had terminated their asset purchase agreement by sending them a letter. Voyager expressed disappointment but noted that their Chapter 11 plan would still allow for the direct distribution of cash and cryptocurrency to their customers through their platform. Binance.US attributed the termination to the unpredictable and hostile regulatory environment in the United States that has affected the entire business community.
Despite concerns about the contract’s fine print that could pardon breaches of tax or securities law, the U.S. government allowed a significant portion of the $1 billion deal to proceed in an April 20 filing. The majority of Voyager creditors and bankruptcy judge Michael Wiles had already approved the deal. However, the committee representing the creditors tweeted that they were “incredibly disappointed” with the news and investigating potential claims against Binance.US.
The U.S. government, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, had attempted to block the deal, arguing that some of the assets involved, including Voyager’s VGX token, could constitute unregistered securities. VGX fell approximately 11% and was trading around $0.3144 on Tuesday. Binance.US had the option to back out of the deal if it was not consummated within four months, according to their original offer made in December.
CEO Changpeng Zhao responded to Twitter speculation that the termination was related to an upcoming settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which had sued parent exchange Binance over selling unregistered crypto derivative products, with an emoji of a shrugging figure. Voyager’s attorneys warned in a recent legal filing that the deal falling apart could cost the estate and its more than 1 million creditors an additional $100 million.