Silvergate Capital initiated at B, Riley with Buy on growing crypto acceptance

In the wake of growing institutional/retail digital asset adoption and usage, B. Riley analyst Steve Moss initiates crypto bank Silvergate Capital (NYSE:SI) with a Buy rating. Shares of SI gain 2.5% out of the gate. The analyst expects the growing acceptance of crypto, including the SEC's approval of a futures exchange-traded fund and the President's Working Group's crypto sprint, to support continued growth, he writes in a note to clients. "Upside from SI's first-mover advantage is likely to result in additional business opportunities, such as its Diem Networks partnership to create a stablecoin and a payments network that we believe has the potential to generate long-term upside" to Silvergate's (SI) EPS estimates, Moss notes. In macro terms, surging inflation could create "substantial" upside to the bank's EPS estimates if interest rates increase. In the past year, SI +237% significantly outperforms the S&P 500 index +29% and Bitcoin (BTC-USD) +128%, as seen in the chart below. Meanwhile, the