Overview

Silvergate Bank was a California bank founded in 1988. The company began providing services for cryptocurrency users in 2016, and conducted an IPO in 2019.

In 2021, Silvergate initiated efforts to launch its own U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, acquiring Meta's Diem technology in January, 2022 for around $200 million to assist with this (Silvergate had previously intended to serve as a key issuer of the Diem currency for Meta).

Foundation and growth

Silvergate Bank was founded as a savings and loan association. Silvergate became a California-chartered bank in 1988. In 1996, it was re-capitalized and reorganized into a bank by Dennis Frank and Derek J. Eisele, but it initially remained a three-branch community bank in the San Diego region.

In 2013, CEO Alan Lane personally invested in Bitcoin; the company launched an initiative to start serving cryptocurrency clients in 2016. After this, the bank grew rapidly, reaching $1.9 billion in assets and 250 clients by 2017. The company conducted an IPO in November 2019 at a share price of $13, and by November 2021 the price had risen by 1,580% to $219 due to the cryptocurrency bubble at the time.

Silvergate Exchange Network

The bank operated a real-time payments system called the "Silvergate Exchange Network" (SEN), which enabled cryptocurrency exchanges, institutions, and customers to exchange fiat currencies such as US dollars and euros. Silvergate was probably the first regulated bank to develop this sort of payment system. By the third quarter of 2022 it had $12 billion in deposits from 1,677 "Silvergate Exchange Network" (SEN) customers including all major cryptocurrency exchanges and over 1,000 institutional investors.

Stablecoin involvement and Diem acquisition

In June 2019, Facebook created the Libra Association, a blockchain group aiming to launch a stablecoin. Based in Switzerland, it soon ran into regulatory hurdles, and in 2020 it rebranded as Diem. It was ready to test its Diem stablecoin in the spring of 2021, and on the brink of approval from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma). However, the final approval needed by the US Treasury was refused, with the Biden administration requesting a delay to examine the project further. Writes The Financial Times, Libra's head of policy, Dante Disparte "quit in frustration."

Under Diem CEO Stuart Levey, the project was then relocated from Switzerland to the US, and began working with Silvergate to issue the currency. At the time, Silvergate was a bank partner of Coinbase and four stablecoins backed by US dollars: Paxos, Circle, Gemini, and TrustToken.

FTX exposure, drop in liquidity, and winding down

In March 2022, Silvergate invested in a $200 million fundraising round for Aptos, a cryptocurrency startup founded by ex-Diem employees. In the first part of 2022, Silvergate made a $205 million loan to the analytics software company Microstrategy, which used the funds to buy bitcoin. By November 2022, the bank was led by Lane as CEO and Ben Reynolds as president, while Eisele remained in the leadership as chief credit officer.

In late 2022—following a fall in cryptocurrency prices and the collapse of many cryptocurrency exchanges and schemes such as FTX—concerns were raised about potential effects on Silvergate due to loss of deposits and credit exposure from SEN leverage, as well as potential ramifications of issues for the wider cryptocurrency ecosystem due to Silvergate's key role in it. Some short sellers raised the prospect of a bank run. The share price of Silvergate had fallen 89% from its November 2021 all-time-high to $25 by 5 December 2022, and its deposits fell to $9.8 billion.

Silvergate reported in November 2022 that it had adequate liquidity, that it only held FTX deposits, and that it was not exposed to FTX via lending. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Roger Marshall, and John Kennedy requested that the bank explain its relationship to FTX in December 2022. By December 2022 deposits at Silvergate had fallen to $3.8 billion.