What happened to Voyager Digital?

Voyager Digital was a US crypto platform that let customers trade coins and earn interest on deposits, which it lent out to other firms. When a major borrower defaulted during the 2022 crash, Voyager froze customer accounts and filed for bankruptcy. It never reopened, and customers were repaid only part of what they held through a court-approved liquidation.

What happened to Voyager crypto in 2022?

Days before the freeze, Voyager sent a default notice to Three Arrows Capital, a hedge fund that had failed to repay a $650 million loan in bitcoin and USDC, The Block reported. On July 1, 2022, Voyager suspended trading, deposits, withdrawals and rewards. On July 5 it filed for Chapter 11 in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, listing more than 100,000 creditors, according to Fortune.

This followed the same pattern as other lenders that year. Crypto lending and borrowing explains why customers of such firms became unsecured creditors rather than depositors.

How did the Voyager bankruptcy play out?

In September 2022, FTX US won an auction for Voyager's assets with a bid valued at about $1.4 billion. That deal died when FTX itself collapsed in November 2022, a story told in what happened to FTX. Binance.US then agreed to buy the assets, but on April 25, 2023 it walked away, citing a hostile and uncertain US regulatory climate.

Voyager switched to a fallback in its plan and liquidated instead. In May 2023, Judge Michael Wiles approved the plan, and Blockworks reported an initial customer recovery of about 35%. The Block reported that first payouts in cash or crypto were targeted for around June 1, 2023.

FTX's estate had also sued Voyager to claw back about $445 million in loan repayments from Alameda Research. In April 2024 a Delaware bankruptcy judge approved a settlement under which FTX gave up its claim to that money plus $5 million in escrow, leaving $450 million for Voyager's estate, Cointelegraph reported.

What was the Voyager FTC settlement?

On October 12, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission said Voyager had told customers since at least 2018 that their deposits were safe, including the claim that customer dollars were FDIC insured. The FTC noted that Voyager was not a bank and that the FDIC does not insure crypto. Voyager agreed to a permanent ban on handling consumer assets and a $1.65 billion judgment, suspended so its remaining assets could go to customers.

Former CEO Stephen Ehrlich fought the case at first. In June 2025 he and his wife agreed to pay $2.8 million and he accepted a ban on marketing crypto products to retail customers, the FTC said. In September 2025 the CFTC obtained a consent order requiring $750,000 in disgorgement to Voyager customers and a three-year trading and registration ban. The broader lessons for anyone holding coins on a platform are in what happens if a crypto exchange goes bankrupt.