We’re having a bit of a Banking Crisis as one of the biggest bank collapses in U.S. history happened, just this week. Silicon Valley Bank had their trading halted on Friday and Regulators shut down the bank’s operations as deposits were flowing out causing a real modern-day Bank Run. The bank is very well known and used by a lot of people in Ventrue Capital and in many cases, the bank would issue loans backed by equity that isn’t even public yet. Sound familiar? Cause to me it kind of sounds like FTX all over again, except in a FULLY REGULATED BANKING SYSTEM. Banks not having money on hand isn’t new, in fact on my Hot Wallet Podcast I spoke to Greg Foss last year about this very thing…

We had some very well-known investors calling for a GOVERNMENT BAIL OUT for the bank.

The failure of @SVB_Financial could destroy an important long-term driver of the economy as VC-backed companies rely on SVB for loans and holding their operating cash. If private capital can’t provide a solution, a highly dilutive gov’t preferred bailout should be considered.

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) March 10, 2023

Some people are saying this could be an EXTINCTION EVENT for early stage Start-Ups

My god. @garrytan on CNBC just now:

Over 1,000 YC companies have been impacted. This is an extinction level event for startups. These depositors will not survive without a government plan.

— Yano 🟪 (@JasonYanowitz) March 10, 2023

We even saw Peter Thiel, famous for PayPal and Palantir advising people to pull their money out as soon as possible.

It’s been a real mess and a problem for the market. If this continues to spread, we could have a real problem as the Federal Reserve might be forced to cut rates in a still elevated inflationary environment and risk a Second Wave of High Inflation.

Stocks in the banking sector had their largest down-day in the stock market since the crash in March 2020.

The Stock Market could be in a pickle and that probably means we’re going to continue to see volatility in Risk Assets and a potentially very dramatic end to the fastest increase in interest rates in history.

Meanwhile, in CryptoLand we’ve seen a lot of Red as Bitcoin came back down to the 20K Level, and late Friday Crypto Exchange Coinbase HALTED Trading and Conversions using the USDC StableCoin as news came out that the company that issues USDC has 3B worth of reserves held at Silicon Valley Bank. Looks like they don’t want to be left holding the bag.

We are temporarily pausing USDC:USD conversions over the weekend while banks are closed. During periods of heightened activity, conversions rely on USD transfers from the banks that clear during normal banking hours. When banks open on Monday, we plan to re-commence conversions.

— Coinbase (@coinbase) March 11, 2023

What’s the USDC SableCoin doing? Oh just losing it’s Peg. That means people are selling so much USDC to try and get their money back that it’s forcing the price down…very much like a Bank Run on a Crypto that is supposed to hold its value at $1.

Even Elon is getting in on the news…

pic.twitter.com/tTMWOHcUom

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 11, 2023

The real question is, what do we do with our money? What do we do with our life force? How do we protect our buying power?

Today, I finally understand the anger that led to the creation of Bitcoin.

Who do you trust with ur livelihood?

A “gov insured” bank that’s not actually insured?

An exchange that goes bust?

A stablecoin that depegs?

Or a currency that makes you 8% poorer every year?

— Nuseir Yassin (@nasdaily) March 11, 2023

Pay attention now, things could get even more real in a hurry. Companies like ROKU, Vimeo, and Roblox have money at SVB and I doubt they are the only ones. ROKU had 1/4 of its total cash pile or 487 million Dollars held at the bank. We could see well-known companies start to struggle.