The swift collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, explained

Silicon Valley Bank customers line up before the opening of a branch at SVB headquarters in Santa Clara, California, on March 13, 2023. | Noah Berger/AFP via Getty Images

What we know about the bank failure and fallout.

Silicon Valley Bank, one of tech’s favorite lenders, collapsed on Friday after 48 hours of chaos, becoming the second-largest bank failure in US history.

The bank’s blowup has sent shockwaves across the tech sector, Wall Street, and Washington, DC, amid concerns that other banks could be in trouble or that contagion could set in. In the days after Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse, the panic appeared to spread, leading to the failure of additional banks, including Signature Bank of New York, which had bet on crypto. But it’s not clear how serious the fallout would be.

(Disclosure: Vox Media, which owns Vox, banked with SVB before its closure.)

The federal government has said it will step in to make sure all of Silicon Valley Bank depositors would have access to their funds. To some, this looks like a bailout, but President Joe Biden has said that those funds would not come from taxpayer dollars, but via loans from a newly created Bank Term Funding Program. It’s also important to note for consumers that the money you have in the bank right now is almost definitely fine.

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