Silvergate’s relationship with crypto goes back to the digital currency’s early days — when the market was largely limited to Bitcoin. Chief Executive Officer Alan Lane was an early believer and wanted to build products to cater to the market. “What I saw,” he says, “was an opportunity to bank these companies that were essentially being de-risked from other banks.”
Identifying a disconnect between the 24/7 trading cycle of crypto and traditional banking’s 9-to-5 five-day-a-week clock, Lane set up a payment network to offer an interface between the world of dollars and the world of crypto. His Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN) allows users to move dollars between each other so that they can settle the fiat side of their crypto transactions any time of the day or night. The network was used by many of the major players in crypto and passed $1…
