Silvergate Capital Corp. has announced that it has discontinued its payments network, the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN), which has been a crucial hub for investors in the cryptocurrency industry.
“Effective immediately Silvergate Bank has made a risk-based decision to discontinue the Silvergate Exchange Network,” the firm said Friday on its website. “All other deposit-related services remain operational.”
The decision comes just days after the bank raised questions about its own viability, warning that it was evaluating its ability to operate as a going concern.
The bank has been a significant player in the crypto industry and was among the first banks to offer banking services to crypto firms.
The bank had been around since 1988 and had always been focused on providing top-notch financial services to its clients. However, in the early 2010s, the bank saw an opportunity to expand its offerings into the emerging world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
The bank began to work with crypto companies, providing them with traditional banking services like wire transfers and checking accounts. But the bank saw an opportunity to do even more. In 2018, they launched the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN), a real-time payment platform that allowed crypto exchanges to instantly move funds between each other.
SEN enabled digital currency and institutional investor clients to send US dollars 24/7.
SEN was a huge success, with some of the largest crypto exchanges in the world joining the network. It was a game-changer for the crypto industry, as it eliminated the need for exchanges to hold large sums of money in various banks around the world. Instead, they could use SEN to move funds instantly and securely.
Binance US, Kraken, Gemini, and ErisX (prior to being acquired by Cboe) were among the major cryptocurrency firms that used Silvergate Bank’s payment service.
As the crypto industry continued to grow, so did Silvergate Bank. In 2019, they went public and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol SI. The bank’s success continued, with their stock price skyrocketing over 300% in the first year of trading.
Following the latest announcement, Silvergate’s shares fell over 2% in after-hours trading on Friday, after closing at $5.77 in regular trade, up 0.9%. On Thursday, the shares had hit a record low, declining over 97% from their peak in November 2021.
Silvergate’s payments platform was considered the flagship offering of the company and was referred to as “the heart” of its group of services for crypto clients.
The firm admitted that it was facing investigations from bank regulators and the U.S. Department of Justice, and was evaluating its ability to operate as a going concern, disclosing that it had sold additional debt securities this year at a loss and that further losses could lead the bank to be “less than well-capitalised.”
Following the warning, major players in the cryptocurrency industry such as Coinbase Global Inc and Galaxy Digital ended their banking partnership with Silvergate. Additionally, stablecoin issuers Paxos and Circle, Cboe’s digital asset exchange, and crypto exchanges Bitstamp and Gemini also suspended their partnerships with Silvergate.
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