Silvergate CEO to depart amid ongoing liquidation and investor suits

Silvergate is losing its CEO Alan Lane and two other top executives as part of an ongoing wind-down of the once crypto-friendly bank.

Silvergate CEO Alan Lane and two other key executives are set to depart from their positions amid a wind-down of the once crypto-friendly bank.

Lane and the firm’s chief legal officer John Bonino will depart on Aug. 15, while Antonio Martino, chief financial officer of the company, will depart on Sept. 30.

In an Aug. 15 filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the bank’s parent company Silvergate Capital said the departures are part of its previously disclosed plan to wind down operations and voluntarily liquidate Silvergate Bank.

A story as old as time.

-Silvergate Bank is a California bank operating from 1988 to 2023.

-The company began providing services for CrYpTO users in 2016.

-In March 2023, the bank announced plans to wind down and liquidate.#bitcoin only.

— Daniel Prince (@PrinceySOV) March 10, 2023

Silvergate noted the three departing executives will not be entitled to any further compensation under their respective employment agreements but will receive severance benefits.

The departures come amid a wave of proposed lawsuits involving the bank.

Silvergate and Lane are named in multiple proposed lawsuits mostly revolving around its alleged role in the misconduct of crypto exchange FTX.

In May, the Texas-based Word of God Church also sued the bank alleging it used $25 million of church deposits to participate in FTX’s “fraudulent” scheme, adding Silvergate and Lane had “unparalleled knowledge of the rampant fraud and corporate malfeasance.”

Another proposed class action alleged the bank did not perform adequate due diligence on the crypto firms it brought on as clients, such as FTX, Alameda and North Dimension.

Other customers, according to the suit, include Binance.US, Huobi Global, Nexo Capital, and Bittrex.

Related: Binance sold USDC for BTC and ETH after Silvergate Bank collapse: PoR report

In March, Silvergate announced it would be winding down its bank’s operations after suffering $1 billion worth of losses as a consequence of the FTX’s demise, one of Silvergate’s leading clients.

The bank’s collapse sent reverberations through the crypto ecosystem and the United States banking sector as it was one of the few regulated financial institutions providing banking services to crypto firms and exchanges.

Alan Lane (@SilvergateCEO) recently took Silvergate Bank public.

They have become one of the most important pieces of infrastructure in the industry.

He tells me everything in this interview, including why he believed in Bitcoin before his peers https://t.co/VKx31h2HJQ

— Pomp (@APompliano) November 19, 2019

Lane’s role will be taken over by Kathleen Fraher, the chief transition officer of the company, while Martinos’ role will be helmed by the current chief accounting officer of the bank, Andrew Surry.

Big Questions: Did the NSA create Bitcoin?