Silvergate Closes SEN Platform Institutions Used to Move Money to Crypto Exchanges

Last week, Silvergate Bank issued a warning regarding its capacity to continue operating as a bank, and then it went ahead and stopped its SEN platform, which was used by institutions to shift money to cryptocurrency exchanges.

A statement to this effect was published on the company’s website on Friday. It said, “Effective immediately Silvergate Bank has made a risk-based decision to suspend the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN).” “Every other service that is linked to deposits is still operating.” A representative from the bank delivered a similar warning to businesses operating in the cryptocurrency sector.

The spokeswoman for the company stated that “unfortunately, we do not have any more information to provide at this time.”

SEN is an immediate settlement service that is available around the clock, seven days a week, and may be used by customers of the bank to complete transactions with one another at any time, including on holidays and weekends. The cryptocurrency exchanges Binance US, Kraken, Gemini, and ErisX were among the prominent companies that the bank identified as clients for the service before ErisX was acquired by Cboe.

After making the announcement on Wednesday that it would postpone the submission of its annual report owing to queries from its auditors, Silvergate had a difficult week as a result of this news. The bank acknowledged in the same notice that it was the subject of investigations by bank authorities and the United States Department of Justice, and it stated that its capacity to continue operating as a “going concern” during the course of the following year may be in question.

The next day, a number of the bank’s most notable cryptocurrency clients withdrew their business, and the stock price of the bank dropped by about sixty percent before beginning to stabilize on Friday.