Resilience in a Volatile Banking Environment

This chapter examines the significant challenges Silvergate Bank faced following the FTX collapse, resulting in a notable decline in assets. It highlights the bank's unique, cash-heavy banking model that enabled it to withstand substantial withdrawals while maintaining stability.

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Silvergate Bank was once crypto’s most important banking partner, handling billions in deposits from the biggest players in the industry. Then, FTX collapsed—and everything changed.

In this episode of Unchained, Mike Lempres, former chairman of Silvergate, talks about how Silvergate grew into a banking giant for crypto, why Washington suddenly turned against them—even after they survived the FTX crisis, and whether Operation Choke Point 2.0 was real.

Plus, did short sellers and politicians work together to tank Silvergate’s stock? And what does the future look like for banks that want to serve crypto?

This is part of the inside story of one of the biggest banking collapses in crypto history.

Show highlights:

2:08 How Mike’s background in banking led him to work in crypto
4:10 Why banking has always been a challenge for crypto companies
5:14 How Silvergate Bank got involved so much with the industry and how it achieved “tremendous growth”
8:10 The “magic” of the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN)
14:19 Why Mike believes Silvergate’s problem was not banking regulators, but D.C. politics
17:49 How everything changed after the FTX collapse
24:45 Whether SEN is a valuable asset for a bank to have
28:39 Why Mike believes that Operation Choke Point 2.0 is real
30:48 Whether short sellers worked with politicians to tank Silvergate
34:21 How Mike thinks that banks could service the crypto industry