Signature Bank’s potential buyers must agree to give up all crypto business: Report

The New York-based bank’s weekend closure came two days after the collapse of another bank, California-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), and less than a week after the closure of another California-based bank, Silvergate Bank. All three of the now defunct banks were known to be crypto-friendly financial institutions.

A class-action lawsuit was filed against Signature Bank in February, alleging that the bank knew about — and facilitated — the “now infamous FTX fraud.” Specifically, the lawsuit accuses Signature Bank of knowing about and allowing “the commingling of FTX customer funds within its proprietary blockchain-based payment network, Signet.”[ads1];

Barney Frank, a Signature Bank board member and former Democratic congressman who co-authored the Dodd-Frank Act, also suggested that the takeover was spurred by an anti-crypto motive, telling CNBC that Signature Bank was solvent — and that regulators intervened anyway for to send a message.

“I think part of what happened was that regulators wanted to send a very strong anti-crypto message,” Frank told CNBC.

However, the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has denied that crypto had anything to do with the decision to close Signature Bank, saying instead that it was due to a “crisis of confidence” in the bank’s management.

Bids to buy Signature Bank are due by Friday 17 March, according to Reuters.

The FDIC did not immediately return CoinDesk’s request for comment.