Silvergate Capital Corporation (NYSE: SI) saw customers deposit an average of $14.7 billion worth of bitcoin and cryptocurrency to the firm’s platform during the first quarter of this year, up from $13.3 billion during Q4 2021, the company said in its quarterly results report released Tuesday.
“We started off 2022 on a strong note, driven by the power of our platform and continued progress on our strategic initiatives,” said Alan Lane, president and CEO of Silvergate, in a statement.
As the company positions itself as a viable banking solution for holders of and service providers for assets like bitcoin, the increasing number of customers utilizing the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN) continues to showcase the market demand from institutional buyers. SEN had over 1,500 customers by the end of last month, Silvergate said, a 27% increase year-over-year as the platform had a little over 1,100 clients in March 31, 2021.
SEN enables real-time U.S. dollar and euro settlement between counterparties, in addition to faster trading, automated funds distribution, and data analysis. Its clients include FTX, Coinbase, Bitstamp, Kraken, and the company behind the USDC stablecoin, Circle.
“I’m particularly pleased with our first quarter results when you consider that this was one of the most challenging periods for the broader crypto ecosystem since the beginning of the pandemic,” Lane said.
A cautious cryptocurrency market resulted in a 35% decrease of U.S. dollar transfers on SEN, bringing Q4 2021 numbers of $219.2 billion down to $142.3 billion during Q1 2022. The platform also saw an year-over-year (YoY) downturn, 15%, as Q1 2021 witnessed $166.5 billion in transactions. Cumulative U.S. dollar transfers on the SEN have now crossed $1 trillion dollars
“While volume on the Silvergate Exchange Network was impacted by broader industry trends, I remain encouraged by the continued growth we saw in customers, SEN Leverage commitments, and average deposits, which reached a record $14.7 billion,” Lane explained.
Net income and customer acquisition both saw an increase, but SEN Leverage positions noted the biggest growth. While the metric sit at $570.5 million during Q4 2021, it teleported to $1.7 billion in commitments at the end of Q1 2022. Over the past one year, SEN Leverage commitments denoted an increase of over 400%.
Silvergate also announced the acquisition of select technology assets from Diem, the failed stablecoin project from Meta Platforms.
“To advance our customer-first approach, we continued to invest in our strategic initiatives, including stablecoin infrastructure through the acquisition of select blockchain-based payment technology assets from the Diem Group, and the launch of the Euro SEN,” Lane said.
