US authorities against sale of insolvent cryptobank Voyager to Binance (msn.com) US authorities against sale of insolvent cryptobank Voyager to Binance Article by Reuters • 4 hours ago NEW YORK/BANGALORE, Feb 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and New York's financial authority have vetoed a sale of insolvent cryptobank Voyager to U.S. subsidiary of trading platform Binance. The deal could violate laws on offering and selling unregistered securities, the SEC said Thursday. The New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) pointed out that Voyager had operated business with virtual currencies without a license, which were therefore illegal. Binance.US and the lawyer of the crypto exchange could not be reached for comment. The SEC, which filed an objection to the acquisition in early January, also raised concerns about the safety of customer deposits. It remains unclear whether companies affiliated with Binance.US or third parties could access the funds. In addition, there is no guarantee that the deposits cannot be transferred from the platform. According to documents and internal communications that became known last week, the parent company Binance had secret access to an account of the supposedly independent subsidiary Binance.US. She had withdrawn several hundred million dollars. The reason for the transfers and the owners of the funds initially remained in the dark. Binance.US had described this information as outdated at the time. The world's largest crypto exchange has trouble with the US authorities in several cases. It is the focus of a money laundering investigation. In addition, the US authorities prohibited the company from issuing its own digital currency Binance USD, which is linked to the dollar rate. They regard this as a security that must be registered. Voyager had slid into bankruptcy due to the price collapse of the cryptocurrency TerraUSD in the spring. (Reporting by Tom Wilson and Yana Gaur; written by Hakan Ersen edited by Sabine Wollrab. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and business) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)
I'm actually glad Voyager went down. They did risky business, and got what was coming. Isn't this how capitalism is supposed to work? People been relying on tax-payer bailouts for stupid decisions far too long. Besides, their collapse helped to cheapen the price of other crypto equities that actually were regulated. Not to mention, this removed some 'bad' competition. Win-Win...