Silvergate Bank didn’t adequately monitor $1 trillion in crypto transactions, SEC says

Silvergate Bank didn’t adequately monitor $1 trillion in crypto transactions, SEC says

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Silvergate Bank, once a cornerstone of the crypto financial world until its collapse in early 2023, defrauded its investors by lying about its anti-money laundering controls and misleading investors about how the fallout from the FTX collapse would affect it, the Securities and Exchange Commission says in a lawsuit. Also named in the suit were the company’s chief executive officer, chief risk officer, and chief financial officer.

Silvergate said it had an effective anti-money laundering (AML) program tailored specifically to crypto but actually didn’t adequately monitor “approximately $1 trillion” in transactions, the complaint says. Silvergate also didn’t notice “nearly $9 billion in suspicious transfers” by FTX entities.

When FTX…

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