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Silvergate Capital

Crypto banking / fintechUSA
New to Unitard
πŸ’€ Dead / Bankrupt
PeakΒ $6 BillionToday
~-99%
from peak
  1. πŸ¦„
    Became a unicorn
    2021
  2. πŸ“ˆ
    Peak valuation
    $6 Billion ’21
  3. πŸ’”
    Became a Unitard
    2022
  4. πŸ’Έ
    Last valuation
    Wiped out
Capital raised
$40M
Total raised
$3.23K/day
Raised per day

Total raised averaged per day over approximately 33.9 years from founding to bankruptcy or shutdown. This is not measured cash burn. Methodology

Funding: Renaissance Capital / Nasdaq
Current status
Announced voluntary liquidation (March 2023) after an $8B+ deposit run; wound down the bank.

The rise & fall

9 moments Β· 1988–2024

The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.

1988
Founded as a community bank
A small La Jolla, California lender β€” decades before anyone says 'crypto'.
Wikipedia
2020–21
Deposits go vertical
After years courting crypto clients other banks wouldn't touch, deposits balloon from about $2B to over $10B.
CNBC
2021
The peak: ~$6B crypto bank$6B
The Silvergate Exchange Network moves dollars between exchanges around the clock; the stock rides the crypto bull to a market cap near $6B.
CNBC
Nov 2022
FTX collapses; the run begins
After Celsius and Voyager, the failure of major client FTX triggers withdrawals of more than $8B and a fire-sale of assets.
CNBC
2022
Falls out of the club
The stock loses most of its value as the run drains the bank.
CNBC
From the inside Β· Glassdoor reviews, 2022–23
Glassdoor reviews read like a wake: employees adored the tight-knit culture to the end, yet several had flagged the concentration risk early β€” an all-in crypto bet the bank wouldn't diversify, and a workforce grown rapidly then cut within months.
Mar 8 ’23
Voluntary liquidation β€” joins the Unitard Club πŸ’”
Silvergate announces it will wind down the bank and liquidate, wiping out shareholders.
CNBC
2024
Regulators collect $63M
Settlements with the Fed, California regulators and the SEC total $63M in penalties.
SEC
$5.94Bof peak value erased Β· 34 years

πŸ’¬ entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor β†—; dated facts carry their source.

How it happened

Silvergate Capital was a California bank that reinvented itself as crypto's banking backbone, its Silvergate Exchange Network moving dollars between exchanges around the clock. Deposits ballooned from about $2B in 2020 to over $10B in 2021, lifting its value near $6B, before the 2022 collapses of Celsius, Voyager and especially FTX, a major client, triggered a run of more than $8B and a fire-sale of assets; in March 2023 it announced a voluntary liquidation that wiped out shareholders.

Source: CoinDesk / CNBC / TechCrunch (peak market cap ~$6B 2021; deposits surged from ~$2B to >$10B then ran off $8B+ after FTX collapse; voluntary liquidation announced March 8 2023; later $63M in regulatory penalties)

Where they went

  • Alan Lane
    CEO 2008-Aug 2023 (hired by the founders; led the bank to its peak and into the 2023 wind-down)
    Not on record
  • Dennis Frank
    co-founder & chairman
    Not on record
  • Derek Eisele
    co-founder & director
    Board Advisor at Pave Bank
    LinkedIn β†—

Current roles as self-reported on LinkedIn, retrieved 2026-08-19. See our methodology.

Disclosed investors (3)

Historical funding participation; lists may be incomplete and do not establish current ownership or investor losses.

* Lead in a funding round Β· Crunchbase β†— Β· 2026-10-13 Β· Methodology Β· Leaderboard

πŸ¦„