New York Bankruptcy Court Orders Alameda Repay $200M Voyager Loan

In Brief

• A bankruptcy court has granted Voyager Digital’s request that Alameda Research repay a $200 million loan in cryptocurrencies.
• Alameda must pay back 6,553 Bitcoin, along with about 51,000 Ethereum by Sept. 30.
• The growing prominence FTX and Alameda are having in their respective markets is raising questions over conflicts of interest.

A court has ordered crypto market maker Alameda Research to return $200 million worth of cryptocurrencies it borrowed from Voyager Digital.

Voyager had requested that Alameda repay the loan, which has now been granted by a New York bankruptcy court, according to the legal filing. It revealed that Alameda has been compelled to pay roughly 6,553 Bitcoin toward principal and accrued fees, along with about 51,000 Ethereum, by Sept. 30.

Accordingly, the filing showed that Voyager would reciprocate by returning the collateral tied to the loan, which includes 4.65 million FTT and 63.75 million SRM tokens.

Earlier in July, Alameda had said that it would be “happy to return the Voyager loan” in return for its collateral.

Alameda and FTX
Alameda was founded by crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, who also established and operates cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

Amid Voyager’s bankruptcy proceedings over the summer, the Bankman-Fried enterprises put forward an offer to purchase its assets at market value, except for loans it had made to Three Arrows Capital.

Despite being in the throes of insolvency, Voyager rejected the proposal, calling it a “low-ball” offer. Meanwhile, an auction for the residual holdings of Voyager began on Sept. 13.

Last month, FTX absorbed the venture capital operations of Alameda into its own venture capital fund. The head of the fund said that the crypto exchange, the venture arm and Alameda were all operating independently of each other.

While Bankman-Fried has also emphasized the independence of the world’s second-largest crypto exchange and the burgeoning market maker, the growing prominence each is having in their respective market roles is raising questions over conflicts of interest.

Larry Tabb, head of market-structure research at Bloomberg Intelligence, believes that exchanges and market makers with close ties and financial interests are “not conducive to being a fair marketplace.” According to Tabb, “when you consolidate and decompress divisions, you get inherent conflicts.”

And Twitter user @FatmanTerra went further, suggesting Alameda’s Bitcoin-denominated loans from Voyager coincided with every major market dump in the past few months.

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