Silvergate saw boom in crypto clients in Q4 - with startup deposits surging

59 additional crypto businesses signed up to bank with Silvergate in the fourth quarter of 2018, taking its total number of crypto clients to 542, according to the bank’s December IPO prospectus.

 

Silvergate is one of the few US institutions that primarily serves crypto businesses and began its campaign to be listed publicly in September when it declared it had 483 crypto clients - including major exchanges Gemini and Coinbase. The new intake is an eclectic mix of protocol developers and mining companies.

 

Despite the growth in its crypto client base, their collective account balance dropped by 8 percent since September; concentrated in a drop in revenue among their exchange customers. Silvergate's crypto accounts now total $1.47 billion in deposits, down by $123 million but up overall from 2017 by 11.4 percent. They were buoyed by their startups more that quadrupling their deposits from $46.4m to $273.9m, its December prospectus showed - a promising sign for its listing and of the space's resilience amid the bear market.