The chief financial officer will leave at the end of September, leaving only the former chief risk officer at the helm.
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Silvergate CEO Alan Lane and Chief Legal Officer John Bonino left the company on Tuesday as the firm once known for its cryptocurrency-friendly bank continues to scale back its operations.
Their departures from the California-based company, which entered voluntary liquidation in March, are effective immediately and are the latest stage in the closure process, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The notice also states that Antonio Martino, Silvergate’s chief financial officer, will leave on September 30. While the three executives will not be entitled to further compensation upon their departure, they “will receive certain severance packages.”
The high-level departures from Silvergate come after the company reduced its staff to a skeleton staff in May, with 230 employees being driven out. Silvergate Bank once served some of the biggest players in cryptocurrency, including Coinbase and Gemini, but its bankruptcy has been a priority for the company for months.
Silvergate's remaining CEO will be Kathleen Fraher, who is listed in the filing as Silvergate's chief transition officer. Her LinkedIn profile shows she has served as the bank's chief risk officer for 17 years.
Silvergate’s closure in March follows the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank, which were also seen as crypto-friendly.
Silvergate’s instant settlement platform, SEN, is its main business and is heavily used by institutional cryptocurrency clients who make transfers around the clock. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation highlighted the risks of servicing multiple cryptocurrency clients at the same time in a report on Monday, saying the practice could create liquidity risks.
Silvergate’s troubles became apparent when it revealed that users withdrew $8.1 billion in cryptocurrency deposits in the final fiscal quarter of last year, the same period during which cryptocurrency exchange FTX went bankrupt and roiled digital asset markets.
To cope with a wave of withdrawals, the company took out a $4.3 billion loan from the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) and sold about $5.2 billion in debt securities. It was the former action that drew the ire of several U.S. senators.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., was among a bipartisan group of lawmakers who condemned Lane in a letter examining the bank’s ties to FTX and accusing the firm of “further introducing cryptocurrency market risk into the traditional banking system.”
