Possible purchasers of Signature Bank should agree to divest from all crypto dealings: Reuters

UPDATE (March 17, 2023, 00:ten UTC): The FDIC denied Reuters’ reporting on Thursday. Click right here much more.

Reuters initial reported the improvement on Wednesday evening, citing men and women familiar with the matter. The Federal Deposit Insurance coverage Corporation stated bids for the bank should be submitted by Friday, according to the report.

The closing of the New York-primarily based bank more than the weekend came two days right after the collapse of an additional bank, California-primarily based Silicon Valley Bank, and much less than a week right after the voluntary closure of an additional California-primarily based bank, Silvergate Bank. All 3 now-defunct banks have been thought of cryptocurrency-friendly economic institutions.

A class-action lawsuit was filed against Signature Bank in February, alleging that the bank knew about — and facilitated — the “now infamous FTKS fraud.” Particularly, the lawsuit accuses Signature Bank of recognizing and enabling “interference [the FTX exchange’s] consumer funds inside its proprietary blockchain-primarily based payment network, Signet.”

Barney Frank, a Signature Bank board member and former Democratic U.S. congressman who co-authored the Dodd-Frank Act, also recommended the takeover was motivated by an anti-crypto motive, telling CNBC that Signature Bank was solvent — and that regulators had intervened to Send a message.

“I assume component of what occurred was that regulators wanted to send a quite robust anti-crypto message,” Frank told CNBC.

Nevertheless, New York’s Division of Economic Solutions denied that crypto had something to do with its selection to close Signature Bank, alternatively saying it was due to a “crisis of self-assurance” in the bank’s leadership.

The FDIC did not quickly return a request for comment.