- On Tuesday, the state Bureau of Securities ordered Voyager Digital LLC to "cease and desist" its sale of "Voyager Earn Program Accounts." It alleged the popular product, which it said has 1.5 million users and holds $5 billion in assets, was an unregistered security, and therefore illegal.
- "The Bureau Chief enters this Order to protect the investing public by halting the offer and sale of these unregistered securities," the order read. While seeking the halting new inflows, the order does not seek to stop Voyager from paying interest on preexisting accounts.
- Voyager Digital CEO Steve Ehrlich did not pick up the phone.
A Jersey Metropolis-based cryptocurrency firm has been ordered by New Jersey to cease promoting interest-earning cryptocurrency accounts, which the state stated have been “unregistered securities.”
The agency has raised at the least $5 billion nationwide with the accounts, the lawyer normal’s workplace stated on Tuesday.
Voyager Digital Ltd., which additionally goes by Voyager Digital, LLC and Voyager Digital Holdings, Inc., has been funding its income-generating actions — together with lending operations and proprietary buying and selling — at the least partially by the gross sales, which violate state securities legislation, in accordance with a cease and desist order filed by the New Jersey Bureau of Securities.
”At present’s motion says loud and clear that the cryptocurrency securities market is just not the Wild West, and investor-protection legal guidelines completely apply,” stated Appearing Lawyer Normal Matthew Platkin. “By efforts like this one, we proceed to carry accountable all those that threaten the integrity of our monetary business and place traders in danger.”
The motion is the state’s third to cease New Jersey-based cryptocurrency companies from providing and promoting unregistered securities within the type of interest-bearing accounts.
“Unregistered securities choices pose vital threat to traders as a result of the issuers don’t make the identical forms of disclosures, together with, for instance, offering detailed monetary statements that sometimes accompany registered choices,” the state stated.
The state’s first motion was in July 2021, when it announced a stop and desist order in opposition to BlockFi Lending, LLC, which the state stated raised at the least $14.7 billion worldwide from the illegal sale of unregistered securities.
Then in February 2022, it entered right into a settlement with BlockFi that required the corporate cease providing and promoting its interest-bearing cryptocurrency accounts till they have been registered with state and federal securities regulators. The settlement additionally required BlockFi to pay regulators $100 million, $943,396.22 of which went to New Jersey.
The state additionally filed a stop and desist order in opposition to Celsius Community LLC In September 2021, wherein the state said the corporate unlawfully raised at the least $14 billion nationwide with the sale of unregistered securities.
“The principles are clear: anybody promoting securities in New Jersey should adjust to the state’s securities legal guidelines,” stated Sean Neafsey, appearing director of the Division of Shopper Affairs. “Our Bureau of Securities will proceed to guard traders by monitoring {the marketplace} to make sure everyone seems to be following the principles, particularly in the case of the ever-evolving cryptocurrency market.”
The Bureau of Securities stated it discovered that Voyager solicits traders to start out Voyager Earn Program Accounts by depositing eligible cryptocurrencies. Voyager then swimming pools these cryptocurrencies collectively to fund its income-generating actions, it stated.
“Traders are promised a sexy rate of interest that’s paid month-to-month in the identical kind of cryptocurrency as initially invested,” the state stated.
As of March 1, 2022, Voyager had greater than 1.5 million Voyager Earn Program Accounts representing roughly $5 billion in belongings. About 52,800 have been New Jersey-based accounts value $197 million in belongings, the state stated.
However the Voyager Earn Program Accounts usually are not registered with the state or another securities regulatory authority, nor are they in any other case exempt from registration, the state stated.
