Tether has no exposure to Silvergate, says CTO Paolo Ardoino

On the heels of a significant announcement involving the distressed US bank Silvergate, which had ties to the lender FTX and is now facing an increasing consortium of capital flight and scrutiny from regulators, at least two crypto companies took to social media today to announce how the news has affected them.

Tether, the stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar and backed “100% by Tether’s reserves,” according to its website, took to Twitter today to announce it had no exposure to the California bank. According to Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Tether, the stablecoin has no exposure to Silvergate.

Circle’s comments

That is not so for another stablecoin, USDC. In a separate tweet, Circle said on Mar. 2 that despite its exposure to Silvergate, all customer assets remain safe and secure.

“We are sensitive to the concerns around Silvergate and are in the process of unwinding certain services with them and notifying customers,” Circle tweeted.

Silvergate Capital, the holding company of Silvergate bank, saw a decline in its stock on March 2 due to the postponement of its annual 10-K report.

The bank is currently evaluating recent events that took place after the end of 2022. Silvergate bank provides banking services to cryptocurrency firms. The company’s stock fell by 45% by the end of the day, and earlier, it had dropped by 48.8%. As a result, Silvergate Capital’s year-to-date losses widened to 57%.

Market cap and reserves

USDT and USDC are the two biggest stablecoins by market capitalization, each accounting for $71 billion and $42.9 billion, respectively.

According to a recent CryptoSlate report, Wall street institution Cantor Fitzgerald reportedly manages $39B of Tether’s reserves, assets that include approximately $39.2 billion of U.S. Treasury bills.