In the fourth quarter of 2021, digital asset-friendly bank Silvergate accepted from cryptocurrency companies $2.1 billion in deposits, their average total amount reached $13.3 billion.
Silvergate serves 1,381 digital industry customers. Between October and December 2021, their number increased by 76, for the year as a whole – by 412.
The bank’s fee and commission income related to such customers for the last reporting period amounted to $9.3 million. For comparison: in the third quarter of 2021 – $8.1 million, in the fourth quarter of last year – $3.8 million. reached $35.8 million against $11.1 million a year earlier.
Net profit in October-December 2021 amounted to $21.4 million compared to $23.5 million in the previous three months and $9.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. For 2021, Silvergate earned $78.5 million for shareholders — more than three times more than a year earlier ($26 million).
“Significant momentum in 2021 is driven by strong demand for our digital currency solutions based on the Silvergate Exchange Network [SEN]. We also continued to develop our infrastructure capabilities for stablecoin issuers and announced the launch of the EJF Silvergate venture fund.”, — commented CEO Alan Lane.
SEN is a payment network that allows you to make instant payments necessary for arbitrage in the digital asset markets. In the fourth quarter of 2021, the volume of transfers in it reached $219.2 billion, which is 35% more than in the same period last year. Over the year, the value increased 5.8 times to $787.4 billion.
The bank continues to develop the SEN Leverage secured lending program in bitcoin. As of December 31, the value of outstanding loans issued under the initiative was $570.5 million. As of September 30, this figure was $322.5 million; as of December 31, 2020, it was $82.5 million.
Recall that in March, the digital assets division of Fidelity Investments became a provider of custodial services in the SEN Leverage program.
In December, Cryplogger reported that Goldman Sachs and other US investment banks were considering organizing tripartite repos backed by bitcoin futures.