UPDATE (March 17, 2023, 00:ten UTC): The FDIC denied Reuters’ reporting on Thursday. Click right here for far more.

Reuters initial reported the improvement on Wednesday evening, citing men and women familiar with the matter. The Federal Deposit Insurance coverage Corp. stated bids for the bank will have to be submitted by Friday, the report stated.

The New York-primarily based bank’s weekend closure came two days following the collapse of an additional bank, California-primarily based Silicon Valley Bank, and significantly less than a week following the voluntary closure of an additional California-primarily based bank, Silvergate Bank. All 3 of the now-defunct banks had been regarded crypto-friendly economic institutions.

A class-action lawsuit was filed against Signature Bank in February, alleging the bank knew about – and facilitated – the “now infamous FTX fraud.” Particularly, the suit accuses Signature Bank of getting information of and permitting “the commingling of [the FTX exchange’s] buyer funds inside its proprietary, blockchain-primarily based payments network, Signet.”

Barney Frank, a Signature Bank board member and former Democratic U.S. congressman who co-authored the Dodd-Frank Act, also recommended the takeover was spurred by an anti-crypto motive, telling CNBC that Signature Bank was solvent – and that regulators intervened anyway to send a message.

“I assume aspect of what occurred was that regulators wanted to send a quite powerful anti-crypto message,” Frank told CNBC.

Even so, the New York Division of Monetary Solutions has denied that crypto had something to do with its selection to shutter Signature Bank, rather saying that was due to a “crisis of confidence” in the bank’s leadership.

The FDIC did not straight away return a request for comment.