Alameda Research and Voyager Digital Dispute $446M from Loans

The disputes around the collapse of FTX continue to proliferate.

Bloomberg reported Monday (Jan. 30) that Alameda Research aims to claw back $446 million from Voyager Digital.

Both companies are bankrupt. Alameda Research is the sister trading firm of FTX, while Voyager Digital is a digital asset lender, according to the report.

The disputed funds involve the two firms. Voyager provided them in loans to Alameda before going bankrupt in July. Alameda repaid them within 90 days of its own bankruptcy filing, and now Alameda is demanding that Voyager return the funds and arguing that they were “preferential transfers,” the report said.

As PYMNTS has reported, FTX and Alameda had proposed buying Voyager in July, but a lawyer for Voyager soon countered that the money was actually a “low-ball bid dressed up as a white knight rescue” that would cost the company money in the long run.

In late June, FTX’s then-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried offered Voyager a $550 million loan before Voyager entered Chapter 11. He said he felt a “responsibility” to attempt to stop a domino effect of insolvencies stemming from the $48 billion collapse of a stablecoin and the subsequent failure of hedge fund Three Arrows Capital.

In December, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison said in unsealed testimony from her guilty plea that she was “truly sorry” for her involvement in FTX’s crypto fraud.

The news of the disputed funds between Alameda and Voyager comes at a time when cryptocurrency exchange Binance’s U.S. business is dealing with regulatory hurdles as it tries to acquire the assets of Voyager Digital for $1 billion.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Texas State Securities Board and the Texas Department of Banking have all filed objections to the move.

The SEC seeks more details about how Binance can close a transaction of this size, how it intends to secure customer assets and how it would rebalance its crypto portfolio, while the two Texas agencies object to the sale because they say Binance.US and Voyager are not in compliance with the state’s laws, aren’t permitted to conduct business in Texas and treat creditors in different states differently.