What happened
Shares of the cryptocurrency bank Silvergate Capital (SI 2.50%) rose nearly 11% today for no specific reason. However, driving the move could be the rise of the broader crypto market and more investors waking up to Silvergate's excellent business model and opportunity with stablecoins.
So what
Silvergate was the first bank to set up a real-time payments platform that allowed businesses on the network to transact in real time, clearing and settling payments instantly. The U.S. doesn't operate on a real-time payments system, and cryptocurrencies trade around the clock, so this kind of system has appealed to crypto exchanges, institutional crypto traders, and others.
Because of the very nature of the business, the stock does trade with correlation to the broader crypto market, which in general rose today, so that might be benefiting the stock.
Image source: Getty Images.
The other recent news is that CEO Alan Lane reaffirmed at a recent summit that he sees stablecoins, which are digital assets pegged to some kind of commodity or currency, as a "real big opportunity for the future."
Silvergate is planning to mint and burn stablecoins from its real-time payments platform. Earlier this year, it announced that it will become the exclusive issuer of Meta Platform's (META 2.98%) (formerly Facebook) Diem U.S. dollar stablecoin.
Now what
The President's Working Group on Financial Markets recently issued a recommendation that lawmakers require stablecoin issuers to be licensed banks. That's great news for Silvergate because it is a licensed bank, and this clarity should enable it to launch the Diem pilot soon. I remain quite bullish on the stock.
