Voyager Digital suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals

Effective immediately, Voyager Digital has suspended all activity, including trading, deposits, withdrawals, and rewards. The company’s share price fell 38% following the news, while its native token VGX is down 9%.

While trading on the platform is currently unavailable, over 25% of the trading volume for VGX occurs on Binance. At the time of writing, the token is still tradeable on Binance, Coinbase, FTX, and others.

Voyager recently received $200 million and 15k BTC from Alameda Research to help stabilize its liquidity and cover its exposure to Three Arrows Capital. The deal resulted in FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried taking an 11% ownership in Voyager Digital.

The average share price of SBF’s holdings at the time of the SEPA filing on June 17 was $2.34, with the share price now down below $0.40. However, documents filed on June 23 indicate that Alameda Ventures surrendered 4.5 million shares, reducing its ownership below 10%.

Voyager’s decision to halt trading will ring alarm bells for investors following the recent string of issues the exchange has faced. In a press release issued Friday, the CEO of Voyager, Stephen Ehrlich, announced

“This was a tremendously difficult decision, but we believe it is the right one given current market conditions. This decision gives us additional time to continue exploring strategic alternatives with various interested parties while preserving the value of the Voyager platform we have built together. We will provide additional information at the appropriate time.”

In an act of full transparency required by Canadian law, Voyager posted details of its balance sheet as of June 30.

Crypto assets – $685,373,000
Crypto assets loaned – $1,124,825,000
Cash held for customers – $355,725,000
Crypto collateral received/ held – $168,685,000

To “support its exploration of strategic alternatives,” Voyager has hired Moelis & Company and The Consello Group as financial advisors and Kirkland & Ellis LLP as legal advisors. The additional support will likely be used to establish whether its business is still commercially viable going forward.

Unlike other exchanges such as Celsius and BlockFi, Voyager is a publicly tradeable company in Canada. It, therefore, has a fiduciary responsibility to release timely updates on factors that may affect investors’ holdings. The share price recovered slightly after slipping 38% and is trading at $0.31 at the time of press.