The Week in Crypto – Silvergate, Ethereum, and UK Banks

Reading Time: 2 minutes

This week in the crypto world we saw Silvergate’s wobbles continue, Ethereum launch a crypto recovery tool, UK banks restrict crypto buying and much more.

Let’s get down and dirty.

Silvergate Misses SEC Deadline

Troubled crypto bank Silvergate compounded months of bad news this week when it revealed that it is evaluating its “ability to continue as a going concern” after telling the Securities and Exchange Commission that it would not be able to file its annual report on time because of its perilous financial situation.

Both Silvegate shares and Bitcoin dropped on the news, which came after Silvergate was linked to the nefarious dealings of Sam Bankkman-Fried at FTX and Alameda Research and a big loss on its most recent earnings report.

Ethereum Deploys ERC-4337 Standard

Ethereum developers recently deployed ERC-4337, a new standard that could make it easier for users to recover their assets if they lose private keys to an online Ethereum wallet. The new standard utilizes something called Account Abstraction, an addition to the Ethereum mainnet which changes the nature of an Ethereum wallet to allow for recovery of private keys should they be lost.

The new standard was recently deployed via a smart contract called EntryPoint, with the aim being to eventually integrate Account Abstraction into the main Ethereum protocol.

More UK Banks Tighten Crypto Buying Limits

Two more British banks this week revealed that they have put stricter controls on how much crypto its customers can buy, with credit card purchases banned outright. Nationwide Building Society and HSBC recently toughened its stance on retail customers’ access to cryptocurrencies, following in the footsteps of Santander, Lloyds and Natwest who have also taken steps to reduce customers’ exposure to digital assets following warnings by the country’s financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority.

British banks have been on something of a mission to ‘protect’ their users from the perils of cryptocurrencies since 2019, making it harder for British crypto buyers to get involved right when the country is trying to become a crypto hub.