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0 CommentsDigital asset brokerage Voyager Digital said Friday that it is pausing all customer trading, deposits, and withdrawals. The crypto company claimed it had been affected by the liquidation of Three Arrows Capital.
Voyager Digital is suspending trading, deposits, and withdrawals in the latest sign of the deepening crisis in the crypto markets. Voyager said the move is meant to give the major crypto broker “additional time” to look for “strategic alternatives” as the company grapples with the impact of the market slump, CEO Stephen Ehrlich said in a statement.
“This was a tremendously difficult decision, but we believe it is the right one given current market conditions,” he said.
The news comes a few days after one of Voyager’s customers failed to make payments on a loan worth hundreds of millions of dollars, fueling growing concerns of an insolvency contagion effect across the industry.
On June 27, the broker issued a notice that prominent crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) had defaulted on a loan worth more than $670 million. At the time, Voyager said that it intended to pursue recovery from 3AC, and in the interim, said it would continue to operate and fulfill customer orders and withdrawals.
Two weeks ago, Voyager said it had secured a revolving line of credit of $200 million and 15,000 Bitcoins from Alameda Research, a firm controlled by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. At the time, Ehrlich said the line would help the company “mitigate current market conditions and strengthen our relationship with one of the industry leaders.”
Voyager’s decision comes after that popular crypto staking and lending platform, Celsius, similarly paused all withdrawals, swaps, and transfers between accounts due to “extreme market conditions” on June 13. Celsius has yet to announce tangible guidance on the next steps.
The total value of the cryptocurrency market has shed roughly $2 trillion in the last seven months, as Bitcoin’s value has dipped below $20,000 and other tokens have dropped severely in value.
Image Source: https://hub.easycrypto.com/voyager-vgx
