Silvergate plunges on warning of survival struggle caused by crypto rout

© Reuters

By Geoffrey Smith and Senad Karaahmetovic

Investing.com -- A crucial part of the U.S.'s cryptocurrency infrastructure is at risk of collapse, under the weight of a depositor run and regulatory investigations into its business.

Silvergate (NYSE:SI), which provides banking services to big crypto exchanges such as Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) and Kraken and did the same for FTX's U.S. operations, said it may not survive as a going concern, as a massive firesale of assets wipes out its capital and leaves it struggling to repay maturing loans. The bank had advances of $4.3 billion from Federal Home Loan Bank as of the end of last year.

Silvergate stock, which endured a torrid 2022 as successive disasters in the crypto space drove retail investors to pull their money out, fell another 33% after the bank said in a filing late on Thursday that it's still losing money as it liquidates its securities portfolio to satisfy client withdrawal demands. Those forced sales, which skyrocketed after the collapse of FTX in November, had already driven it to a $1B loss in the fourth quarter.

"The Company sold additional debt securities in January and February 2023 and expects to record further losses related to the other-than-temporary impairment on the securities portfolio," Silvergate said in a filing to the Securities and Exchanges Commission on Wednesday, adding that it is unlikely to meet an extended deadline of March 16 for filing its annual results.

"These additional losses will negatively impact the regulatory capital ratios of the Company and the Company's wholly owned subsidiary, Silvergate Bank...and could result in the Company and the Bank being less than well-capitalized. In addition, the Company is evaluating the impact that these subsequent events have on its ability to continue as a going concern," Silvergate said in its statement.

Since the collapse of FTX, U.S. regulators have ramped up their efforts to stop fraud and poor risk management in crypto from affecting the mainstream banking system. The Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have all weighed with stern warnings to banks on their potential exposure to the sector.

The filing comes only a month after Bloomberg reported that the Department of Justice is investigating its relationship with FTX and its hedge fund affiliate Alameda Research. Silvergate hasn't been accused of wrongdoing, but there has been rampant speculation over the extent to which Silvergate may have facilitated the allegedly fraudulent activity of those two companies, in light of its multi-year banking relationship with them.

FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried - now facing federal fraud charges - himself said that "it's hard to overstate how much (Silvergate) revolutionized banking for blockchain companies."

However, the bank's problems haven't left it without supporters. BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) said in January that it had raised its stake in Silvergate to 7.2%, while Citadel Securities disclosed a 5.5% stake three weeks ago.

JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) analysts downgraded SI shares to Underweight on further downside risk.

"With our prior downgrade of the stock from Overweight to Neutral being tied to the earnings power of the company being a question mark, with the company needing to incur additional losses on securities, which is calling into question not only the potential for capital levels to fall below the company being well capitalized but with Silvergate also indicating that it is evaluating the impact from subsequent events have on its ability to continue as a going concern, we are further downgrading SI shares to Underweight," they said in a client note.