FTX is paying $51 million in cash for Voyager assets, court records show

FTX's winning $1.4 cardinal bid for bankrupt crypto steadfast Voyager Digital was announced earlier this week, but tribunal filings bespeak that the currency paid for the steadfast itself is importantly little — $51 million.

The bulk of FTX's offer focused connected Voyager's crypto holdings, which amounted to $1.31 billion. Those holdings volition beryllium distributed to eligible creditors connected a pro rata basis, the filings say.

Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX's founder, has pursued an aggressive buying spree crossed the crypto industry, snapping up profoundly discounted assets successful the aftermath of defaults, bankruptcies, and marketplace tumult.

In the Voyager deal, FTX's information for non-crypto assets — the users, intelligence property, and operation of Voyager itself — constitutes a full of "at slightest $111 million," filings show. Just $51 cardinal of that is for Voyager's assets, intelligence property, and idiosyncratic base. The remaining $60 cardinal consists of an accumulated $50 relationship recognition for each Voyager idiosyncratic who successfully onboards with FTX and a $20 cardinal "earn out" allowance.

It was not instantly apparent, based connected filings, who would payment from an earnout, which is often utilized successful acquisitions arsenic a mode to incentivize founders and absorption teams of the institution being purchased.

Voyager's astir caller bankruptcy study indicated that the institution held conscionable shy of $900 cardinal successful crypto assets for customers, with different $456.44 cardinal loaned retired and $173.68 cardinal held arsenic collateral from borrowers. 

Voyager users who chose to migrate to FTX's level would person a pro rata organisation of Voyager assets, based connected their information of Voyager's wide holdings.

Voyager's troubles emerged aft the steadfast extended a indebtedness valued astatine $670 cardinal to crypto hedge money Three Arrows Capital (3AC) successful aboriginal 2022. When 3AC defaulted connected its indebtedness obligations successful precocious June, it unleashed a fiscal cascade that pushed Voyager into bankruptcy and 3AC's founders into hiding. 

FTX's bid, if approved by creditors, would transportation Voyager's indebtedness balances — excluding the 3AC loan, which was not portion of the woody — to FTX and, by extension, to Bankman-Fried. The $51 cardinal terms tag for Voyager and its associated claims would correspond a steep discount, fixed FTX's presumption of lawsuit assets and indebtedness balances.

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