from Hacker News

Silvergate Bank to begin voluntary liquidation

by pg_bot on 3/8/23, 9:38 PM with 83 comments

  • by dzdt on 3/8/23, 10:26 PM

    Good context by Matt Levine a few days ago [1]. Basically Silvergate did a lot of business with crypto firms and got burned not by crypto speculation but just by holding long maturity safe assets when too many of their customers wanted to withdraw money on a short term basis. The result was falling below the line of being "well capitalised" as a bank. Bank regulation seems to be working here: there is no indication of wrongdoing or losses to depositors...

    [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-02/silver...

  • by the_mitsuhiko on 3/8/23, 10:11 PM

    Necessary context: Silvergate Bank was a major (by crypto standards) bank underpinning crypto companies.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvergate_Bank

  • by elektor on 3/8/23, 10:21 PM

    It's interesting to see how quickly the public interest (and money!) has shifted from cryptocurrency to AI.

  • by gjvc on 3/8/23, 11:23 PM

    this is the latest institution that short-seller Marc Cohodes https://twitter.com/AlderLaneEggs has been early in identifying as worthless

  • by walterbell on 3/8/23, 11:09 PM

    WSOP coverage:

    https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/03/fdic-investigators-ar...

    > Silvergate’s ability to find a white knight bidder to “salvage” the bank ended when gutsy U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), John Kennedy (R-LA), and Roger Marshall (R-KS) released a letter on January 30 to the bank’s CEO, Alan Lane.

    https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/03/silvergate-a-federall...

    > Another way that Silvergate apparently met the run on the bank was to obtain $4.3 billion in advances from the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco – a program meant to support housing for the poor.

  • by AtlasBarfed on 3/9/23, 3:24 AM

    What, no bailout? Guess they don't know the right people.

  • by LatteLazy on 3/8/23, 10:23 PM

    This is a real pity.