The U.S. judge allowing Binance.US to acquire Voyager Digital’s assets may be pushing federal authorities to accelerate criminal and civil actions against the international Binance.
Owing to the stringent regulatory environment in the United Kingdom, Paysafe moves to suspend deposit and withdrawal of GBP for existing Binance customers from May 22.
The Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York Department of Financial Services had opposed the deal, the latter alleging Voyager had operated an unlicensed and illegal virtual currency business in New York.
Wall Street Journal recently reported on internal communications that poke larger holes in Binance’s repeated assertions that the Binance.US exchange is an independent entity.
HSBC and Nationwide are not the only banks with digital currency purchase restrictions in the U.K., as Santander, Lloyds Bank, and Natwest Group have previously made similar moves targeting Binance.
Voyager Digital announced that most of its creditors had voted in favor of its restructuring plan that will see Binance.US acquire around $1 billion in frozen assets.
BUSD trading on Coinbase will be suspended on March 13, but BUSD holders will continue to have access to their funds and make withdrawals whenever they want.
In a flurry of court filings, New York and federal finance regulators lodged multiple objections to the proposed billion-dollar deal, on the grounds that it could prove discriminatory and unlawful.
Paxos CEO Charles Cascarilla said that the decision was not linked to the NYDFS order, clarifying that "The market has evolved, and the Binance relationship no longer aligns with our current strategic priorities."
Apart from the planned meeting with EU officials on the MiCA regulations, U.S. authorities will also hold talks with controversial digital asset firms, including Binance, Ripple, and Coinbase.
Responding to the damning report, a spokesperson from Binance.US denies that Changpeng Zhao has more control over the platform than the execs themselves, adding that Reuters has used "outdated information."
U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan has ordered SBF to refrain from using VPN when accessing the internet from his house arrest at his parents’ home in California.
