$SI is my biggest holding, been recommending it since May. A quick thread typed in under 5 mins so forgive any errors, please always fact check & DYOR
If you want exposure to crypto/Bitcoin to me $SI seems a much better, leveraged, tax efficient way to do it.
A short Thread...
Silvergate Capital ($SI) is a small bank based in California that has been operating for over 20 years & never posted a loss. A solid base if ever I've seen one. $SI when public in Nov 2019 to raise funds to develope its 'SEN Exchange', this is where the story gets interesting.
The 'SEN' Silvergate Exchange Network is a crypto to USD exchange platform built by $SI to allow the 24/7 exchange of crypto currencies to USD, something that was previously unavailable. The beauty is, that as far as I can tell $SI take very little relative risk in that process.
Also recently $SI have been pushing their newest offering 'SEN Leverage' which allows customers to obtain USD loans collateralized by bitcoin using the Silvergate Exchange Network ("SEN") to fund loans and process repayments in virtually real-time, 24/7, 365 days a year.
The SEN exchange launched in 2017 and just reached $100 Billion in transacted volume. $75B of that was this year! $35B of that was in the 3rd Quarter of this year !! Not bad for a company with a $600 million MC, which btw trades at a very reasonable P/E
Customers include @Coinbase, @Bitstamp, @krakenfx, @Gemini, @ledgerx & Genesis 👀
There are also a few notable shareholders including @arkinvest 👀Just a couple of weeks ago $SI added Johnathan Melton to the team as Director of digital asset lending.
Before joining $SI Jonathan was a Director at Xapo, one of the largest bitcoin custodians, which was acquired by Coinbase. Before Xapo, Jonathan was employed by Morgan Stanley for 13 years over seeing a diverse foreign exchange platform through a period of substantial growth.
CEO Alan Lane @SilvergateCEO has 35 years of leadership experience, formerly Director of Bancorp and Chief Executive Officer of Business Bank of California just to name a few. Alan has been a crypto industry supporter for a number of years opening doors into the banking sector.
Overview
Company: 20 years trading, debt levels sensible, profitable, solid.
Management: Experienced in the sector, seem very solid. Long track record.
TAM: Huge to Massive depending on your view on crypto.
Valuation: Reasonable
Growth: Accelerating
Risks: Crypto legislation