SVB crisis: What lesson crypto investors can learn from US banks fallout?

livemint.com:

Many eyes shifted toward the crypto market when the US shut down Silicon Valley Bank in a surprising move. SVB was not just the largest lender of unicorns, startups, and techs but was also home to some of the crypto companies' reserves. While SVB shocks were enough to send jitters across the market, other lenders' demise such as Signature Bank and Silvergate escalated the knock-on effect in cryptocurrencies. Majority wonder how much impact the crypto market which has been on a roller coaster ride since last year — will face from this US banks failure.

Rajagopal Menon, Vice President, WazirX said, "the New York Department of Financial Services has taken possession of Signature Bank, a key intermediary between the fiat and crypto world. After the collapse of Silver Gate and SVB banks, which have crypto and VC concentration risk respectively, the move affects stable currencies and crypto."

When SVB collapsed, crypto market faced a blow after one of the largest operators of USDC, Circle announced that it had $3.3 billion of reserves backing the token which was stored with the bank.

Other major crypto companies such as Coinbase Global Inc. and Paxos Inc. are reportedly exposed to these failed US banks. Signature Bank especially is said to be one of the largest lenders of crypto.

Bloomberg reported earlier that Signature had begun a pullback from digital assets in the wake of the blowup of the FTX exchange but still had $16.5 billion in crypto-related client deposits as of March 8. Signature and Silvergate also enabled fast payments between customers like hedge funds and exchanges, supporting digital-asset liquidity.

As per Menon, the action is meant to prevent banking sector contagion, but uncertainty may worsen credit