Silvergate Capital enters bankruptcy after crypto bank’s shutdown

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Silvergate Capital, the parent company of crypto-focused Silvergate Bank, has filed for bankruptcy to wind down its operations after the bank’s 2023 shutdown. The company, which has no remaining lines of business, filed for bankruptcy late Tuesday in Wilmington, Delaware, to complete the bank’s liquidation and pay creditors using its remaining cash. La Jolla, California-based Silvergate, which primarily served clients in the cryptocurrency industry, ceased operations in March 2023 and returned deposits to customers after turmoil in the broader digital asset market caused a run on the bank.
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After repaying customer deposits, Silvergate Capital has about $163 million in cash that it will divide among its stakeholders in bankruptcy. Silvergate expects to fully repay bondholders who are owed $18 million and make payments to holders of preferred equity, but it does not expect to be able to repay holders of its common stock.
Silvergate was one of several U.S. banks to collapse in 2023, including Silicon Valley Bank, First Republic Bank and Signature Bank.

Silvergate had expanded rapidly as crypto markets took off, with the bank’s total deposits growing from $1.8 billion at the end of 2019 to $14.3 billion at the end of 2021. Digital asset exchange customers accounted for approximately 58% of Silvergate Bank’s overall deposits in 2021, according to court filings.
After a spate of crypto companies failed in 2022, including the once-prominent crypto exchange FTX, customers withdrew more than $8 billion from Silvergate. The withdrawals forced the bank to sell long-term debt securities at a loss, according to court filings.

Silvergate Capital said that U.S. regulatory scrutiny in the wake of the 2022 crypto collapse made Silvergate Bank’s business model “untenable.”
Silvergate agreed in 2023 to pay $63 million to end probes by the Federal Reserve, California’s bank regulator, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Bank regulators said they found deficiencies in Silvergate’s monitoring of transactions in compliance with anti-money laundering laws, while the SEC said the bank and three of its top executives made misleading statements.

Silvergate said in bankruptcy court filings that its bank “did not fail,” and that it repaid all customer deposits without any cost imposed on the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

The case is In Re: Silvergate Capital Corp, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, No. 24-12158
For Silvergate Capital: Paul Heath, Emily Mathews, Michael Merchant and David Queroli of Richards, Layton & Finger

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