Silvergate Bank
Silvergate Bank is a U.S.-based commercial bank that was established in 1988 and headquartered in La Jolla, California. It is primarily focused on providing financial services to customers in the digital currency industry, including digital currency exchanges, institutional investors, and other fintech companies.
Silvergate Bank has positioned itself as a leading provider of banking services to the digital currency industry, including bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The bank provides services such as USD and digital currency funding, wire transfers, ACH transfers, and other related services to its customers. Silvergate Bank is known for being one of the first banks to enter the digital currency market, and it has been a pioneer in the space ever since.
Signature Bank
Signature Bank is a U.S.-based commercial bank that was founded in 2001 and headquartered in New York City. The bank provides a wide range of banking services to its customers, including commercial lending, deposit products, and treasury management services. Signature Bank is known for being a “crypto-friendly” bank, as it provides banking services to a number of customers in the digital currency industry.
The bank has positioned itself as a leader in the digital currency space and has made a number of strategic investments in blockchain and other digital currency-related companies. Signature Bank’s commitment to the digital currency industry has helped it establish a strong reputation among digital currency companies, investors, and other stakeholders. In recent years, Signature Bank has emerged as a leading provider of banking services to the digital currency industry, and its decision to work with companies like LedgerX is a testament to its commitment to this emerging market.
Ledger X Moves From Silvergate
According to a recent report by Bloomberg, LedgerX, a trading platform that offers derivatives products based on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, has stopped using Silvergate Bank for domestic wire transfers. Instead, it will now use Signature Bank for this purpose. LedgerX informed its customers of the change via email.
LedgerX was acquired by FTX.US in 2021 and is one of the few projects associated with Sam Bankman-Fried that survived the FTX bankruptcy proceedings that took place in November of last year. As a CFTC-regulated trading platform, LedgerX has played a critical role in Bankman-Fried’s efforts to gain influence in Washington.
In January of this year, FTX’s new management was authorized to sell four of the firm’s independent subsidiaries, including LedgerX. Bidders for LedgerX reportedly include crypto exchanges like Blockchain.com, Gemini, and Bitpanda, as well as event-contracts trading platform Kalshi.
Both Silvergate and Signature Bank have built their reputations on connecting crypto firms with traditional banking services. However, they have recently faced significant controversy. FTX and its affiliated entities had accounts at both Silvergate and Signature Bank, and the two companies are now under increased regulatory scrutiny.
In December, Silvergate was hit with a class-action lawsuit alleging that it directly aided FTX’s fraudulent activities by engaging in “first-hand participation in the commingling of funds, improper transfers, and lending out of customer money.” In addition, Silvergate’s dealings with FTX and Alameda Research caught the attention of a bipartisan group of U.S. senators, including crypto critic Elizabeth Warren. The lawmakers demanded more information about the relationship between FTX, Alameda Research, and Silvergate, alleging that the company “further introduced crypto market risk into the traditional banking system.”
Silvergate’s Q4 2022 financial results revealed a $1 billion net loss and a decline in customer deposits of approximately $14 billion, citing the “planned reduction in digital asset banking deposits” as well as industry-wide chaos.
Signature Bank, on the other hand, was hit with a separate class-action lawsuit last month. Investment and algorithmic trading firm Statistica Capital alleged that the bank “had actual knowledge of and substantially facilitated the now-infamous FTX fraud.”
While Signature Bank refused to “comment on specific clients,” it confirmed to Bloomberg that it is “still in the business of holding digital asset deposits.”
