After the acquisition of BlockFi early this year, Crypto exchange giant FTX US has come to the rescue of yet another crypto platform hit by insolvency troubles. FTX won a bid against Wave Finance, a digital-asset investment firm, to acquire crypto lender Voyager’s assets, according to a recent press release. Voyager was sold for approximately $1.4 billion.
The FTX bid covers, first, the fair market value, which to be determined at a date in the future. (The current market price of Voyager’s cryptos is estimated to be $1.311 billion.) Second, it provides approximately $111 million of Voyager’s incremental value. It will use this to pay off the users interest locked on the platform.
Additionally, the company’s claims against Three Arrows Capital remain with the bankruptcy estate, which will distribute any available recovery on such claims to the estate’s creditors.
The latest development emerges against the backdrop of the fall of the crypto lending empire, which began earlier this July. Voyager Digital filed for bankruptcy, followed by another leading crypto lending platform, Celsius. Both platforms filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections. After Celsius halted withdrawals amid liquidity troubles, it produced a domino effect. Multiple industry players fell soon after.
It was in this context that FTX first donned the role of a savior earlier this July. The Sam Bankman-Fried company acquired crypto lending platform BlockFi amid dire liquidity issues. FTX bought the crypto lender for $240 million, but the deal also held a $400 million revolving line of credit facility, subordinate to all client funds.
Following this, FTX was also rumored to acquire the South Korean crypto exchange platform, Bithumb. However, the rumors never materialized into a real deal.
