# Signature Bank **Signature Bank** was a New York–based commercial bank, founded in 2001 as a business-friendly alternative to the megabanks, that failed on **March 12, 2023** — the third-largest bank failure in U.S. history at the time. It was closed by the New York State Department of Financial Services, with the [[FDIC]] named receiver. At the end of 2022 it held about $110.4 billion in assets and $88.6 billion in deposits. Signature's distinguishing feature — and its vulnerability — was its heavy turn toward the **crypto industry**. Beginning in 2018 it courted digital-asset clients and built Signet, a 24/7 blockchain-based payments network, accumulating roughly $16.5 billion in deposits from crypto-related customers. That concentrated, flighty, largely-uninsured deposit base made it acutely exposed to contagion. When [[Silicon Valley Bank]] collapsed two days earlier, depositors ran on Signature within hours; regulators seized it that weekend to stop the panic from spreading. The failure cost the Deposit Insurance Fund an estimated $2.5 billion. For the KB, Signature sits at the intersection of two through-lines. It is part of the **2023 regional-banking crisis** alongside [[Silicon Valley Bank]] and [[First Republic Bank]] — the largest cluster of bank failures since [[2008 Financial Crisis]], all rooted in the same interest-rate shock and concentrated deposit bases. And its seizure became a grievance touchstone in the crypto world's **[[Debanking]]** narrative: the claim, central to [[Operation Choke Point 2.0]], that regulators used the 2023 failures as cover to push banks out of crypto. A further irony the vault notes: former congressman Barney Frank — co-author of the [[Dodd-Frank Act]] — sat on Signature's board and argued the seizure was meant to send an anti-crypto message. ## See Also - [[The Banking System]] - [[Silicon Valley Bank]] - [[First Republic Bank]] - [[Financial System Timeline]] - [[Financial System Hub]]