The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FIDC) kicked off the auction process for Silicon Valley Bank on the evening of March 11, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed sources. Bids will only be open for a few hours until the process closes on March 12.
The FDIC is looking for a buyer for the California bank over the weekend, ahead of the market opening on March 13, according to Bloomberg. However, no final decision has been made and a deal may not be reached.
Earlier on March 12, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she was working with regulators to resolve the Silicon Valley bank failure and protect investors, but was not considering a large bailout. She noted that regulators "want to make sure that what's wrong with one bank doesn't spread to other sound banks."
According to Yellen, the FDIC is considering "a wide range of available options," including the acquisition of SVB by a foreign bank. "We're certainly working to resolve this in a timely manner," she said. Cherokee Acquisition, the trading platform in the bankruptcy case, told the FT that some clients were being quoted between 55 cents and 65 cents per dollar for unsecured deposits. Other customers received offers of 70 to 75 cents per dollar for bank deposits, the second source said.
"I've had several companies sell for 90 cents to make sure they get paid. All of these companies have an SVB effect," one venture capital investor told the FT. Ripple Ventures founder and managing partner Matt Cohen said on Twitter that financial firms are offering affected companies “aggressive loan terms” as collateral under receivership certificates.
It is unclear whether Ripple is at risk of SVB crashing. Ripple CTO David Schwartz tweeted that an official statement on Ripple's potential exposure to Silicon Valley Bank will be released soon. Cointelegraph reached out to Ripple but did not immediately hear back.
On March 12, a Castle Hill audit report listing depositors disappeared. Cointelegraph previously reported that Web3 venture capitalists have more than $6 billion in assets at the bank, including $2.85 billion from Andreessen Horowitz, $1.72 billion from Paradigm and $560 million from Pantera Capital. Silicon Valley was shut down by California financial regulators on March 10 after announcing a massive asset and stock sale to raise $2.25 billion to shore up operations.
