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The
crypto exchange's U.S.-based affiliate Binance.US intends to buy
Voyager's crypto lending platform with a bid that includes $20
million in cash and crypto assets that will be used to repay
Voyager's customers.
But the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United
States (CFIUS), an interagency body that vets foreign
investments into U.S. companies for national security risks,
said Friday that its review "could affect the ability of the
parties to complete the transactions, the timing of completion,
or relevant terms."
Attorneys for Voyager and Binance.US did not immediately respond
to requests for comment Friday.
CFIUS has increasingly been used by Washington as a tool to
stymie Chinese investment in the United States.
Binance, is owned by Chinese-born and Singapore-based Changpeng
Zhao and has no permanent headquarters. The company has been the
subject of a money laundering probe by U.S. prosecutors.
Binance.US, based in Palo Alto, California, has said that its
separate American exchange is "fully independent" of the main
Binance platform.
CFIUS did not mention any specific security concerns raised by
the Voyager acquisition in its court filing, but it said that
bankruptcy courts have sometimes ruled that national security
concerns can prevent a company from bidding on assets in
bankruptcy.
Voyager filed for bankruptcy in July, months after the crash of
major crypto tokens TerraUSD and Luna sent shockwaves across the
digital asset industry.
Voyager initially planned to sell its assets to FTX Trading, but
that deal imploded when FTX went bankrupt in November amid a
frenzy of customer withdrawals and fraud allegations that led to
the arrest of founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth)
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