Silvergate stock climbs after upgrade to Outperform at KBW on institutional crypto adoption

Shares of Silvergate Capital (NYSE:SI) rise as much as 6% intra-day as KBW analyst Michael Perito upgrades the bank to Outperform on the basis of growing institutional cryptocurrency adoption. The call comes just a couple days after SI got removed from Wedbush's best ideas list. With institutional digital asset adoption on the rise, the company "remains positively positioned to continue growing its balance sheet as long as trading volume remains fairly steady, which it has in Q4 for the most part," Perito highlights. Note that SI's deposits have been growing consecutively since Q2 2020. For Silvergate's (SI) stablecoin stream, which only accounts for about 2% of Perito's 2024 earnings per share estimate, could represent "significant upside to our model" if the company can launch a project in the near future, the note says. But if the U.S. adopts a central bank digital currency, the addressable market for SI's planned stablecoin may be