How Silvergate Became the Leading Bank for Crypto Startups

It’s been a long journey for Alan Lane since the Silvergate Bank CEO bought his first bitcoin in 2013.

That was around the time his small, deposit-hungry bank, based in La Jolla, California, took on its first crypto exchange as a client. It was a gutsy move for a financial institution, since at the time most bankers viewed bitcoin as either a fad, a scam or a reputational and regulatory risk – if they had even heard of it all.

Speaking Friday at the BlockFS conference in New York, Lane recalled:

“Here were these companies that were raising money from reputable [venture capital] firms. They weren’t doing anything illegal, they weren’t doing anything immoral. And yet, they were struggling to maintain bank accounts. So I put our need for deposits together with their need for banking services.”

Five years later, Silvergate is arguably the leading bank for crypto startups in the U.S. Prominent exchange clients include Coinbase, Gemini, Kraken, and bitFlyer. And as revealed in the bank’s initial public offering prospectus, filed earlier this month, the bank now works with 483 crypto startups that contributed roughly $1.7 billion in deposits to the balance sheet as of Q3 2018.

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