Tag Archives: liquidity

Silvergate Bank died yesterday. Its parent, Silvergate Capital Corporation, posted an obituary notice (click for larger image):Silvergate Bank bled to death after announcing significant delay to its 10-K full-year accounts and warning that it might not be able to continue as a going concern. We will never know whether it could have recovered from the bank run after the failure of FTX. The bank run after the announcement was far, far worse. The exit of its major crypto customers sealed...

This is the story of a bank that put all its eggs into an emerging digital basket, believing that providing non-interest-bearing deposit and payment services to crypto exchanges and platforms would be a nice little earner, while completely failing to understand the extraordinary risks involved with such a venture. On 1st March, Silvergate Capital Corporation announced that filing of its audited full-year accounts would be significantly delayed, and warned that its financial position had...

Yesterday, the SEC issued a Wells notice to the stablecoin issuer Paxos, warning it that the SEC intended to take legal action against it for issuing an unregistered security. The security in question is the fully-reserved stablecoin BUSD (Binance USD), which Paxos issues expressly for use on the Binance crypto exchange. The Wells notice doesn't apply to Paxos's other fully-reserved stablecoin, USDP, which it issues for use on its own platform.  A few hours later, the New York Department of...

Celsius Network was never a real business. It did not have a viable business model. Really, it was a momentum trading scheme that relied on the premise that crypto prices would always rise. And when they didn't, it resorted to fake valuations and market manipulation to escape insolvency. It was fraudulent from the start.  This is the conclusion I've reached after studying the U.S. Examiner's final report (yes, I've read all 476 pages of it) and Celsius's audited reports and accounts up to...

 It's been evident for some years now that those selling risky crypto products to risk-averse investors like to have federal branding on their snake oil. Tether claimed to have 100% actual dollar backing for its stablecoin. Various exchanges and platforms claimed that customer deposits were FDIC insured. The New York Attorney General showed that Tether didn't have 100% dollar backing or anything like it. And now the FDIC has sent cease & desist orders to FTX, Voyager and several other...

The Fed's interventions in the repo market are attracting considerable comment. A lot of people seem to think the Fed has embarked on another QE program without Congressional approval. And the usual suspects are complaining that the Fed is pumping up stock prices and debasing the dollar.  Stocks are indeed heading for the moon - though so is the dollar, which rather undermines those who think it is being debauched. But the Fed's interventions in the repo markets have nothing to do with stock...

The Fed's interventions in the repo market are attracting considerable comment. A lot of people seem to think the Fed has embarked on another QE program without Congressional approval. And the usual suspects are complaining that the Fed is pumping up stock prices and debasing the dollar.  Stocks are indeed heading for the moon - though so is the dollar, which rather undermines those who think it is being debauched. But the Fed's interventions in the repo markets have nothing to do with stock...

The Carillion whitewash has begun. Carillion's interim CEO, Keith Cochrane, is spinning the line that had banks not pulled funding, its collapse could have been averted. And the Financial Times has released details of a letter Carillion sent to the Government at the beginning of January, in which it asked for short-term advances to tide it over while it underwent restructuring. Labour MP Pat McFadden has written to the Treasury Secretary asking whether it would have been more...

Rick Bookstaber explains how the EFT market in illiquid assets like high yield bonds creates an illusion of liquidity that is not there.Rick BookstaberCan We have an ETF Meltdown?Rick Bookstaber | Chief Risk Officer for the $110 billion pension and endowment of the University of California

At the ICAEW's conference "Do Banks Work?" last week, there was a fascinating interchange between Ian Gorham of Hargreaves Lansdowne and RBS's Ross McEwan. Apparently RBS had refused a large deposit from Hargreaves Lansdowne, to the irritation of the asset manager. "There is a problem placing client money", said Gorham. And he went on: "Banks don't need people's savings, because they now have much more capital to support lending. This means that savers receive much lower interest rates on...