A federal judge has approved an order requiring crypto lending firm Voyager Digital and its affiliates to pay $1.65 billion in monetary relief to the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
In a Nov. 28 filing in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Judge Gregory Woods ordered Voyager to pay $1.65 billion following a settlement between the lending firm and the FTC announced in October. As part of the agreement, Voyager will be “permanently restrained and enjoined” from marketing or providing products or services related to digital assets.
According to Judge Woods, the order will largely not impact proceedings in bankruptcy court, where Voyager filed for Chapter 11 protection in July 2022 and disclosed liabilities ranging from $1 billion to $10 billion. In May, the court approved a plan allowing Voyager users to receive 35.72% of their claims from the lending firm initially.
Under the settlement, parties associated with Voyager must cooperate with FTC officials, including testimony at hearings, trials and discovery. After a year, Voyager must also report on its compliance with the proceedings, subject to monitoring by the commission.
Related: FTC enhances investigative procedures to deal with AI-related lawbreaking
In October, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the FTC filed parallel lawsuits against former Voyager CEO Stephen Ehrlich, alleging he made misleading statements regarding the use and safety of customer funds. Ehrlich claimed at the time that Voyager’s team “consistently communicated and worked closely” with regulators, largely denying the allegations.
In July, the FTC ordered crypto lending firm Celsius to pay $4.7 billion in fees, alleging the company’s co-founders misappropriated user assets and misled investors about the platform’s services. U.S. officials arrested former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky, who remains free on bail until his trial, scheduled to begin in September 2024.
Magazine: US enforcement agencies are turning up the heat on crypto-related crime
A Nigerian court has reportedly delayed the country’s tax evasion case against Binance until April 30 to give time for Nigeria’s tax authority to respond to a request from the crypto exchange. Reuters reported on April 7 that a lawyer for Binance, Chukwuka Ikwuazom, asked a court the same day to invalidate an order allowing for court documents to be served to the company via email. Binance doesn’t have an office in Nigeria and Ikwuazom claimed the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) didn’t get court permission to serve court documents to Binance outside the country. “On the whole the order for the substituted service as granted by the court on February 11, 2025 on Binance who is … registered under the laws of Cayman Islands and resident in Cayman Islands is improper and should be set aside,” he said. FIRS sued Binance in February, claiming the exchange owed $2 billion in back taxes and should be made to pay $79.5 billion for damages to the local economy as its its operations allegedly destabilized the country’s currency, the naira, which Binance denies. It also reportedly alleged that Binance is liable to pay corporate income tax in Nigeria, as it has a “significant economic presence” there, with FIRS requesting a court order for the exchange to pay income taxes for 2022 and 2023, plus a 10% annual penalty on unpaid amounts along with a nearly a 27% interest rate on the unpaid taxes. In February 2024, Nigeria arrested and detained Binance executives Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla on tax fraud and money laundering charges. The country dropped the tax charges against both in June and the remaining charge against Gambaryan in October. Tigran Gambaryan (right) was seen in a September video struggling to walk into a courtroom in the Nigerian capital of Abuja. Source: X Anjarwalla managed to slip his guards and escape Nigerian custody to Kenya in March last year and is apparently still at large. Related: Binance exec shares details about release from Nigerian detention Gambaryan, a US citizen, returned home in October after reports suggested his health had deteriorated during his detainment with reported cases of pneumonia, malaria and a herniated spinal disc that may need surgery. Binance stopped its naira currency deposits and withdrawals in March 2024, effectively leaving the Nigerian market. Magazine: Trash collectors in Africa earn crypto to support families with ReFi
Asset manager Teucrium Investment Advisors is set to launch the first XRP-based exchange-traded fund in the US markets, a leveraged XRP (ETF) on the NYSE Arca. The Teucrium 2x Long Daily XRP ETF will seek to offer investors two times the daily return of the XRP (XRP) token with a 1.85% management fee and annual expense ratio, according to the company’s website. The XRP-based ETF will trade under the XXRP ticker beginning April 8. “If you have a short-term high-conviction view on XRP prices, you may consider exploring the Teucrium 2x Long Daily XRP ETF,” the alternative asset manager said. XXRP currently has $2 million worth of net assets. Details of Teucrium’s soon-to-be-launched XXRP ETF. Source: Teucrium Teucrium founder and CEO Sal Gilbertie told Bloomberg on April 7 that investors had shown strong interest in an XRP ETF and hinted that it may file to list more crypto ETFs in the future. Gilbertie was also pleased that XXRP would launch during a market downturn driven largely by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs. “What better time to launch a product than when prices are low?” Gilbertie told Bloomberg. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said it was “very odd” to see a new asset’s first ETF come in leveraged form — however, he added that the odds of a spot XRP ETF being approved remain “pretty high.” Source: Eric Balchunas Several spot XRP ETF applications from the likes of Grayscale, Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, Canary Capital and 21Shares are being reviewed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. In February, Balchunas and fellow Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart attributed 65% approval odds to a spot XRP ETF in 2025. Predictions market Polymarket states there is currently a 75% chance that the SEC will approve a spot XRP ETF in 2025. Related: XRP price sell-off set to accelerate in April as inverse cup and handle hints at 25% decline Up until recently, ETF issuers would have seen a different environment for filing for XRP ETFs as Ripple Labs — the creators of the XRP token — and the SEC battled out a four-year court battle over XRP’s security status. That case came to a close last month. Teucrium has amassed over $310 million worth of assets under management since it was founded in 2010. It offers mostly agricultural commodities, such as ETFs tracking the likes of corn, soybeans, sugar and wheat. Magazine: XRP win leaves Ripple and industry with no crypto legal precedent set
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Nigeria’s legal history with Binance
Likelihood of an approved spot XRP ETF still high: Analyst
