Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was founded in 1983 in Santa Clara, California, by Bill Biggerstaff and Robert Medearis. For four decades it served as the primary banking partner for tech startups, venture capital funds, and, increasingly, crypto companies. At its peak in late 2022, SVB held roughly $209 billion in total assets and ranked as the 16th largest bank in the United States. Its deep integration into the startup ecosystem made it the default financial institution for a wide range of blockchain and digital asset businesses.
SVB's relationship with the crypto industry was twofold: it provided banking services – accounts, credit lines, and wire infrastructure – to hundreds of crypto-native firms, and through its venture arm, SVB Capital, it made direct equity and fund-of-funds investments in the sector. This dual role gave SVB unusual visibility into early-stage crypto deal flow. The bank was an early institutional backer of the crypto VC ecosystem at a time when mainstream banks refused to open accounts for digital asset companies.
On March 10, 2023, SVB collapsed in a bank run – the largest US bank failure since Washington Mutual in 2008. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) took control. The sequence that triggered the run began when SVB disclosed a $1.8 billion loss on its bond portfolio, forced by rising interest rates. Depositor confidence broke within 48 hours. Within the crypto sector, the collapse had immediate knock-on effects: Circle, issuer of the USDC stablecoin, disclosed that approximately $3.3 billion of its cash reserves – roughly 8% of USDC's total backing – were held at SVB. USDC briefly depegged to $0.87 before the US Treasury and FDIC guaranteed all deposits, including uninsured balances, restoring parity. Ripple also confirmed it held a portion of its cash at SVB, though it described the exposure as limited. BlockFi, already in bankruptcy proceedings, had additional complications from its SVB exposure.
Notable investments
SVB Capital's direct equity investments in crypto and blockchain were selective. Public information about the specific six portfolio companies recorded in on-chain and deal databases is limited, but SVB's broader crypto involvement included LP positions in funds managed by leading crypto-focused VCs. The bank was also a lender to companies such as Coinbase and provided credit facilities to several stablecoin infrastructure providers. SVB's investment thesis in crypto centered on infrastructure and institutional on-ramps rather than speculative token projects.
Team
Greg Becker served as CEO from 2011 until the collapse in March 2023. He had joined SVB in 1993 and rose through its technology banking division. Daniel Beck was CFO at the time of the failure. John China led SVB Capital, the venture arm responsible for direct fund and equity investments. Following the FDIC takeover, First Citizens BancShares acquired the bulk of SVB's loan portfolio and deposits in a deal announced March 27, 2023. SVB Capital was retained separately and later rebranded and spun off; its future as an independent manager is subject to ongoing proceedings.
Recent activity
Since the March 2023 collapse, SVB as an independent entity no longer operates. The FDIC completed the resolution process through the First Citizens acquisition. SVB Capital's portfolio, including its crypto-adjacent fund stakes, entered a wind-down or transition process. Regulators, including the FDIC and the Federal Reserve, subsequently published post-mortems attributing the failure to rapid balance sheet growth, concentrated depositor base risk, and inadequate interest rate hedging. The Federal Reserve's own supervisory review, released April 2023, also cited management and regulatory shortcomings.
SVB's collapse accelerated an industry-wide conversation about banking access for crypto companies. Several crypto-focused alternatives – including Mercury and Silvergate's former clients migrating to newer banking partners – filled part of the gap SVB left. As of 2024, the brand and certain commercial banking operations continued under First Citizens, though the specific focus on startup and crypto clients has not been fully restored. SVB's story remains one of the most significant cautionary examples of concentrated sector risk in modern US banking history.