‘Great Time to Be a #Bitcoin Banker’: Silvergate CEO Alan Lane

Silvergate (SI) is willing to “entertain more opportunities” to expand its Bitcoin lending program, said CEO Alan Lane, speaking Tuesday morning on the company’s post-earnings conference call.

• Silvergate recently made a $205 million bitcoin-backed loan to Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy (MSTR), and is looking to do more. “Anybody else out there listening to this call who has bitcoin on their balance sheet,” Lane said … “It’s a great time to be a Bitcoin banker.”
• The MicroStrategy loan came via Silvergate’s Silvergate Exchange Network Leverage Program, a platform set up to make loans against bitcoin held on company balance sheets.
• Additionally, Silvergate said the plan to launch a stablecoin this year remains on track, though no exact timing was given. Management said it’s figuring out how to manage reserves in the best manner.
• In January, Silvergate announced it was purchasing the technology and other assets from Diem, the stablecoin project from Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook) first announced as Libra in June 2019.
• Shares of Silvergate are up about 12.6% Tuesday trading.

Read more: Silvergate Bank’s Q1 Net Income Nearly Doubles to $24.7M

   
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