Crypto Biz: Silvergate shutting down, Alameda suing Grayscale

cointelegraph.com:

With the Bitcoin (BTC) halving more than a year away, don’t expect crypto industry narratives to change anytime soon. Nay, crypto winter is still in full force, and the nasty headlines show no signs of abating. 

This week, Silvergate Bank’s parent company announced it would shut down and liquidate the crypto bank “in light of recent industry and regulatory developments.” This hardly comes as a surprise after most of Silvergate’s high-profile partners abandoned the company when the regulators came knocking.

The latest Crypto Biz newsletter documents the voluntary liquidation of Silvergate, a new lawsuit from Alameda Research targeting the Digital Currency Group (DCG), and “stale” Tether allegations from The Wall Street Journal.

After months of uncertainty, Silvergate Bank’s parent company announced on March 8 that it would unwind its operations and liquidate its remaining assets. While this marked another blow to the crypto industry, the writing was already on the wall for Silvergate Bank. According to reports, Silvergate Bank had been negotiating with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to avoid a shutdown. Apparently, those talks went nowhere. Like other crypto firms, Silvergate’s troubles began with the meltdown of FTX and ended with regulators investigating the bank’s alleged involvement in Sam Bankman-Fried’s doomed empire. By the time Silvergate went under, companies like Coinbase, Paxos, Gemini, Galaxy Digital and BitStamp had already cut ties.

Here’s a headline you probably weren’t expecting: Bankrupt Alameda Research is suing Grayscale Investments and its owner, the Digital Currency Group, for its exorbitant fees and refusal to unlock shareholder redemptions. The lawsuit, filed in Delaware, alleges that