The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has objected to Binance.US’ move to acquire over $1 billion of assets belonging to the defunct cryptocurrency lending firm Voyager Digital. According to a Feb. 22 filing submitted to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York, the SEC believes that certain elements of the asset restructuring plan of Binance.US’ acquisition could breach Securities Laws. The SEC is formally investigating whether Binance.US and related debtors violated anti-fraud, registration and other provisions of the federal securities laws. The SEC noted particular concern around the security of assets through the planned …

Consequences of the FTX scandal at the hands of its founder and former CEO, Sam Bankman Fried, continue to surface. On Feb. 17, it was reported that the bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi Inc. appealed to the United States Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware, to strip the Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections from SBF’s offshore investment vehicle. Emergent Fidelity Technologies Ltd. was used by the FTX founder to purchase a 7.6% stake in Robinhood Markets Inc. According to BlockFi’s motion, the bankruptcy status of Emergent Fidelity holds little purpose and was filed to undermine BlockFi’s own claim to shares of Robinhood. However, …

Hedge fund Galois Capital, one of the victims of the FTX collapse, has thrown in the towel after half of its assets got trapped in the bankrupt exchange. The fund has finally decided to shut down and return its remaining assets to investors. On Nov. 12, the hedge fund admitted in an announcement from its official Twitter account that it had significant exposure to the FTX exchange. For the record, yes we did have significant funds stuck on FTX. No, we did not use any Bahamian method to move funds out. — Galois Capital (@Galois_Capital) November 11, 2022 According to …

Nishad Singh, the co-founder and former chief engineer of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, is working on a plea deal with prosecutors, Bloomberg reported Feb. 17. The deal, which would see the 27-year-old Singh plead guilty to charges related to FTX’s collapse, has yet to be finalized, the report said. Singh would be following in the footsteps of former FTX chief technology officer Gary Wang and former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, who pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges in December after reaching deals with prosecutors. Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) has pleaded innocent to eight federal charges and is currently …

Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX’s subsidiary in Japan, FTX Japan, reportedly plans to resume withdrawals for affected users as early as February. According to a Feb. 17 report from Bloomberg, FTX Japan sent out notifications asking users to verify their account balances as part of the process to begin allowing withdrawals. Seth Melamed, chief operating officer of the exchange, reportedly said users could transfer assets to accounts on the FTX-owned Liquid Global platform, with withdrawals expected to begin “very soon”. “We are confident that we will adhere to the timeline,” said Melamed. The schedule for restart of withdrawals for all FTX …

The top Mt. Gox creditor chose to have an early payout in Bitcoin (BTC), deciding against waiting longer for an even larger payment. Mt. Gox Investment Fund, the largest creditor of the defunct crypto exchange, reportedly decided to take its chances with a lesser but earlier payout rather than waiting for all the legal processes to be resolved. This means that the creditor will be paid by September this year instead of potentially waiting another nine years before getting their funds back. According to Bloomberg, opting for the earlier payout means that the creditor will be taking only 90% of …

Debtors for crypto lender Celsius Network have the authority to sell coupons for mining firm Bitmain coupons worth roughly $7.4 million following a ruling from a bankruptcy judge. In a Feb. 16 court filing, United States Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn said it was in the “best interests of the Debtors’ estates, their creditors, and other parties” to allow Celsius debtors to sell their Bitmain coupons. The judge’s ruling does not require the debtors to liquidate the holdings in question, but they would need the consent of the committee of unsecured creditors. Christopher Ferraro, interim chief executive officer of Celsius, claimed …

Bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network has chosen NovaWulf Digital Management as the sponsor for its proposed Chapter 11 restructuring plan which will see the investment advisory firm take over the operations of a new company, and most customers estimated to recover up to 70% of their funds. Celsius presented the plan on Feb. 15 in a filing to the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The proposed plan has the support of the Celsius Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors (UCC) — a body representing the interests of Celsius account holders. The plan sees the creation …

Judge John Dorsey of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware has denied a motion appointing an independent examiner for FTX. In a Feb. 15 hearing, Judge Dorsey said he had some discretion under the law to choose whether to appoint an examiner in the FTX bankruptcy case despite some of the the parties meeting the debt threshold with the loss of funds. According to the judge, appointing an examiner would be an “unnecessary burden” on FTX’s debtors and creditors. He also cited CEO John Ray’s experience under similar circumstances. “There’s no question that if an examiner …

Users of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX have reportedly taken aim at financiers who promoted the platform suggesting their efforts added an “air of legitimacy” to the now-defunct exchange, a case labeled as "tricky" by a crypto lawyer. A Feb. 15 Bloomberg report revealed a class-action suit filed Feb. 14 by FTX investors against venture capital firm Sequoia Capital and private equity firms Thoma Bravo and Paradigm. The firms were accused by the investors of touting “their own investments” of hundreds of millions of dollars in FTX. It was alleged the firms were involved in a promotional marketing campaign in 2021 …

The joint provisional liquidators of FTX Digital Markets — the firm’s subsidiary in the Bahamas — has released a report on the company’s physical assets in the island nation. According to affidavit filed by a PricewaterhouseCoopers partner with the Bahamas’ supreme court on Feb. 8, FTX’s joint provisional liquidators, or JPLs, said the company had purchased 52 properties in the Bahamas, including units “in the name of individual employees or relatives of SBF, despite FTX Digital providing the funding”. These properties, which included housing for FTX employees and commercial office space, were worth roughly $255 million and purchased by an …

Remember when Sam Bankman-Fried admitted to being a significant donor to the Democratic and Republican parties? Well, the recipients of the tainted money have been formally requested to return the funds to FTX’s creditors. So far, we know of three prominent Democratic groups — the DNC, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — that have returned SBF-linked donations in December 2022. Will the rest follow? As FTX seeks clawbacks, the Digital Currency Group and its bankrupt subsidiary, Genesis Global Trading, have agreed to a restructuring plan. The good news is that Genesis account holders will …