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March 27 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday temporarily stopped bankrupt Voyager Digital (VYGVQ.PK) from completing a proposed $1.3 billion sale to crypto exchange Binance.US, allowing the U.S. government more time to pursue appeals that challenge the legality of the deal.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and the Office of the U.S. Trustee, the Department of Justice's (DOJ) bankruptcy watchdog, filed appeals in early March over a bankruptcy court's approval of the sale.

They argued that the protections could rubber stamp crypto tokens that might be unregistered securities, as well as transactions that could be illegal under U.S. securities laws.

U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rearden in Manhattan ruled Monday that the sale should be put on hold, overruling Voyager's argument that a delay could cause Binance.US to back out of the deal entirely.

Binance.US and Voyager did not immediately respond to requests for comment late on Monday.

Voyager, which filed for bankruptcy in July, said in court filings last week that the DOJ appeals should not be allowed to keep the company and its customers "in limbo" during a legal process of uncertain duration.

Binance.US has agreed to pay $20 million in cash to Voyager, and take on crypto assets deposited by Voyager customers. Those assets, valued at $1.3 billion in February, account for the bulk of the deal's valuation, according to Voyager.

The international Binance crypto exchange was sued on Monday in a separate legal action by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which filed a lawsuit alleging that Binance.com operated an "illegal" exchange and a "sham" compliance program.

Binance.US maintains publicly that it is entirely independent of Binance.com, operating as the "U.S. partner" to the world's biggest crypto exchange.

The CFTC disputed that in its lawsuit, alleging that Binance personnel "dictated Binance.US's corporate strategy, launch and early operations" and that it has an ongoing relationship with BAM Trading, a company controlled by Binance CEO and founder Changpeng Zhao.

Reporting by Jaiveer Singh Shekhawat in Bengaluru and Dietrich Knauth in New York; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Jamie Freed

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Judge halts Voyager Digital's $1.3 bln sale to Binance.US - Reuters

Soon after the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sued crypto exchange Binance and its CEO Changpeng CZ Zhaofor regulatory violations, the entrepreneur sought damage control measures while rejecting allegations of market manipulation. However, investors responded by pulling over 3,400 Bitcoin (BTC) from Binance within 24 hours of the announcement, anticipating market fluctuations.

Binance.com does not trade for profit or manipulate the market under any circumstances, stated CZ,responding to the CFTCs allegations. However, episodes involving crypto entrepreneurs such as FTXs Sam Bankman-Fried and Terraform Labs Do Kwonhave shaken investor confidence in the crypto ecosystem.

Investors have started moving assets away from Binance to lessen the impact of a shutdown if it were to happen. As a result, Binance saw a reduction in its total Bitcoin balance while other exchanges registered an increase, as shown below.

Binances Bitcoin balance was reduced by over 3,900 BTC in the past week, of which 3,400 BTC were pulled out in the last 24 hours alone.

Competing exchanges, including Coinbase, Bitfinex and Gemini, recorded an increase in BTC reserves during the 24-hour timeframe.

It is important to note that Bitcoin balances on crypto exchanges have declined since March 20. Over the last seven days, nearly 27,000 BTC left major exchanges.

Related: 7 details in the CFTC lawsuit against Binance you may have missed

Alongside the CFTCs lawsuit against Binance and CZ, a federal judge temporarily halted a proposed deal between Voyager and Binance.US.

As Cointelegraph reported, Judge Jennifer Rearden of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted the emergency stay on March 27, halting the potential deal between Voyager and Binance.US until a decision is made on the Department of Justices appeal against the bankruptcy plan.

Magazine:US enforcement agencies are turning up the heat on crypto-related crime

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Binance Bitcoin balance drops by 3.4K BTC within 24 hours of CFTC lawsuit - Cointelegraph

The CFTC has sued Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao, or CZ.Ben McShane/Sportsfile for Web Summit via Getty Images

Cryptocurrencies are trading lower after CFTC sued major exchange Binance for regulatory violations.

Bitcoin and Ether are trading around $27,000 and $1,700 respectively, about 3% lower over the past 24 hours.

Binance called CFTC's complaint "unexpected and disappointing."

Two major cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ether are trading about 3% lower on Monday, after the Commodities Futures and Trading Commission, or CFTC, sued Binance,its CEO Changpeng Zhao,and former chief compliance officer Samuel Lim, for regulatory violations.

Bitcoin and Ether prices are around $27,000 and $1,700 per token respectively, per CoinMarketCap data. Both cryptocurrencies had hit all-time highs when they surged past $69,000 and $4,800 in November 2021.

The news also spurred ether outflows from Binanceto the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars over 24 hours, CoinDesk reported Tuesday, citing data from Nansen, a blockchain data analytics firm.

The US regulator said in a complaint filed in a Chicago federal court Monday that Binance breached eight provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act.

The CFTC said Binance "lucrative and commercially important 'VIP'" customers, including institutional customers in the US while disregarding registration and regulatory requirements under the US law. The federal agency is requesting the court to order monetary penalties on the exchange, as well as trading and registration bans.

Binance's Zhao wrote in a Monday blog that the CFTC's complaint was "unexpected and disappointing" as the exchange has been "working cooperatively with the CFTC for over two years."

"Upon an initial review, the complaint appears to contain an incomplete recitation of facts, and we do not agree with the characterization of many of the issues alleged in the complaint," he added.

A Binance spokesperson told Insider in an emailed response for comment late Mondaythat the exchange has made "significant investments" over the past two years to ensure it doesn't have active US users on its platform. Measures include ramping up its compliance team by more than seven times and spending an additional $80 million on external partners to support its compliance program.

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Bitcoin and Ether are down 3% after CFTC sued Binance and its CEO over US regulatory violations - Yahoo Finance

Yuri Molchan

News of CFTC suing Binance seems to have little effect on price of XRP

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Crypto influencer David Gokhhstein has noticed that, unlike the rest of the cryptocurrency market, the price of XRP token remains unaffected by the sudden lawsuit of the CFTC regulator against the Binance crypto giant.

Gokhshtein took to his Twitter page to tweet that the whole cryptocurrency market went down on the recent news of the CFTC suing Binance all crypto, that is, except XRP. The price of the sixth largest digital currency has shown a rise of over 4% in the past 24 hours, now trading at $0.4841.

Over the past week, the increase in the XRP price constitutes close to 25%.

Aside from the expectations of Ripple and the XRP community to finally see the judge determine a verdict on the Ripple-SEC case in the first half of this year, the following factors likely impacted the growth: Binance announced that it will soon add an XRP/TUSD pair and the rise of XRP social dominance over other digital currencies. XRP hit the $0.49 level earlier today, regaining this price mark for the first time since early November.

The crash of the FTX exchange spearheaded by former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried back then pushed the XRP price down, as well as Bitcoin and the rest of the cryptocurrency market.

The event that has pushed Bitcoin and the crypto market down except XRP was the legal complaint of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The regulator filed the lawsuit against both Binance and its co-founder and chief executive, CZ.

The regulator claims that Binance has been breaking U.S. laws related to derivatives for years and that it should have registered with the CFTC a long time ago. According to Bloomberg, CFTC has referred to Binance's compliance efforts with it as "a sham to place profits over following the law."

To respond to the civil complaint filed by the regulator on Monday, CZ published a blog post. He stated that the complaint seems to contain "an incomplete recitation of facts," and CZ with his legal team "do not agree with the characterization of many of the issues alleged in the complaint."

He tackled just a few issues mentioned in the complaint by the regulator: compliance with U.S. laws and blocking U.S. users, Binance's transparency and cooperation with global law enforcement and regulators, issues related to registrations and licenses of the exchange, and to trading crypto assets and derivatives, in particular.

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David Gokhshtein Highlights XRP Price Resistance as Binance Lawsuit News Spreads - U.Today

Alex Dovbnya

Binance is set to launch six new TUSD trading pairs on March 29 with zero maker fees to entice users, following the replacement of its BUSD stablecoin

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Binance announced today that it will open trading for LDO/TUSD, MATIC/TUSD, OP/TUSD, SOL/TUSD, SSV/TUSD, and XRP/TUSD trading pairs on March 29at 08:00 (UTC).

Users will enjoy zero maker fees on them until further notice. This incentive is expected to encourage more traders to explore and utilize these new trading pairs.

TUSD, which has replaced Binance's BUSD stablecoin, is controlled by controversial entrepreneur Justin Sun, who has just been sued by the SEC.

This move comes after Paxos, the firm behind the BUSD stablecoin, stated on February 21st that it would cease issuing new BUSD tokens due to directives from the New York Department of Financial Services.

In response, Binance has been working to replace the BUSD trading pairs with alternative stablecoins.

The decision was made to ensure that the assets in SAFU continue to protect users in the long term as the market capitalization of BUSD decreases over time.

Binance emphasized that this change will have no impact on users and the funds will continue to be stored in publicly verifiable addresses.

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XRP Gains New TUSD Trading Pair on Binance as Platform Replaces BUSD - U.Today