Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.

The breakdown is produced and distributed by CoinDes.

What's going on, guys? It is Thursday, March 2nd, and today we are talking about the causes

and consequences of the Silvergate Death Spiral. Before we get into that, however, if you

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Well, guys, in many ways, the last year has been us waking up each day and asking what part

of the sky is falling. In that period, rapidly decreasing prices led to protocol failures,

led to credit crunches, led to credit crises, led to institutional failures, led to further credit

issues, led to more institutional failures,

and so on. Since FTCS failed, one of the key questions has been what other dominoes would

follow. Genesis and DCG have been a key part of that question. Genesis halted withdrawals the

week after FTX declared bankruptcy, and parent company DCG has basically been negotiating with

creditors ever since. Now, that story isn't fully done, with a big $575 million dollar DCG has basically been negotiating with predators ever since. Now, that story isn't fully done,

with a big $575 million DCG loan payment to Genesis technically coming due in May. However,

the other big institution that has been under the spotlight is publicly traded bank Silvergate.

And today, Silvergate is absolutely the main character.

Yesterday, they delayed their annual report, triggering a big sell-off in aftermarket trading.

J.P. Morgan and others cut their rating of the stock.

And then this morning, Coinbase jumped off the sinking ship, announcing that they were moving their business to signature. As I write this, Silvergate's stock is down 50% since yesterday,

hitting its lowest level since its 2019 IPO.

...