Crypto prices slide amid Silvergate fallout

Both bitcoin and ether prices slid this week in the aftermath of crypto bank Silvergate’s troubles. 

Over the past week, the price of bitcoin fell by 4.8%, while the ether decreased by 3.9%, according to TradingView data. Those price fluctuations came amid the crypto bank’s Wednesday reveal that it may be “less than well capitalized.”

TradingView chart of Bitcoin price over past week.

Altcoins didn’t fare well over the past week either. Cardano declined by 6.3% and Solana fell by 8.3%, while memecoins Shiba fell by 9.9% and Dogecoin by 5.5%, according to CoinGecko data. 

Bitcoin was trading at $22,353 on Saturday morning, while Ether was at $1568.78, according to TradingView at 6:30 a.m. ET. 

Macro matters

Earlier in the week, Bernstein analysts said that crypto correlation with macro events and U.S. equity markets was weakening. The crypto market’s sensitivity to traditional markets isn’t what it used to be, with every dip being bought after down days in U.S. equity markets, the analysts said. 

Crypto stocks

Some crypto stocks reflected limited fallout from Silvergate. The crypto bank’s stock fell by 60.55% over the last week to $5.76. Still, Microstrategy dropped by only 5.81% to $246.91 as its co-founder Michael Saylor said Silvergate was a “responsible” bank amid the collapse of other crypto institutions, including the FTX exchange, and added that he would keep doing business with the crypto-friendly bank

Coinbase, which said Thursday it was no longer accepting or initiating payments to or from the crypto bank, felt some initial stock price tremors from Silvergate’s disclosure but ended the week at $64.50, an increase of 7.41%.  Block ended the week at $80.87, an increase of 4.21%.