No. of Recommendations: 1
''The trouble at Silvergate Capital is another bad sign for the crypto universe.
The lender's stock is tumbling. The firm won't be able to file its annual report on time after it took a $1 billion loss in the fourth quarter.
Unlike FTX, the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange, Silvergate is a bank, insured by the federal government, and dealing in old-fashioned dollars and cents. Sure, its customers are big crypto players, and it can style itself as a fintech, but it's still a bank.
Another contrast is that Silvergate's problems don't stem from any alleged fraud'FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried stands accused of taking depositors' money and using it like his own. He denies the charges. Silvergate had to sell securities at fire-sale prices, creating a doom loop that drained the bank of liquidity.
Crypto has long had its detractors. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon called it hyped-up fraud and a pet rock, among other things. Warren Buffett called cryptocurrencies rat poison and said they would probably come to a bad end.
Bankman-Fried's advice was: 'Seek out opportunities with the biggest upside, not the ones that are safest.'
It's worth noting that Signature Bank, another bank close to the cryptoverse, in December said it would drastically reduce deposits of digital asset customers. It shed more than $12 billion in crypto-linked deposits last year'a painful loss. Silvergate made no such pivot.
This feels like another 'I told you so' moment. Yet the big slump in crypto coins is taking a breather at the minute. After a precipitous slide last year, Bitcoin is up more than 40% this year, hovering above $23,000.
Crypto may yet have another day in the sun. But for now, its move into the mainstream is further away than ever.''
