Top Crypto App Downloads Surge Over 15% After SVB Collapse

Meanwhile, banking app downloads plummeted

Following an upheaval in the US banking system over the past week, crypto exchanges and wallets have gained momentum as some seek bankless alternatives.

The top 10 crypto apps for exchanges and wallets have seen downloads rise by around 15% since shares of Silicon Valley Bank fell 60% last week, according to a chart from data provider . real-time applications Apptopia. The top 10 crypto apps were defined as Coinbase, Crypto.com, Trust, Binance, Bitcoin and Crypto DeFi Wallet, Blockchain.com, KuKoin, Kraken, eToro and BitPay.

Meanwhile, the top 10 traditional banks and top 10 “digital-first” banking app downloads fell over the same period, by around 5% and 3%, respectively. The top 10 banking apps include Capital One, Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Discover, Citi, and US Bank, among others. The top 10 digital apps were Chime, Dave, Albert, Empower, Varo, MoneyLion, Current, Aspiration, Sand and Oxygen.

The divergence in downloads indicates widespread customer concern in the United States amid the recent banking crisis.

In the past week, Silvergate Capital, Silicon Valley Bank, and Signature Bank have all closed or been shuttered, sending crypto firms, investors, and mainstream users scrambling to move their assets.

The closure of these banks has raised bigger questions about where people and businesses should store their assets and which banks they can (or can’t) trust.

Other medium-sized and regional banks, including First Republic, came under pressure following the collapse of SVB. First Republic had the third highest rate of uninsured U.S. deposits behind SVB and Signature, with about $119.5 billion in uninsured deposits, according to Reuters.

The crypto market is showing “positive contagion” after the SVB collapse, similar to what happened in 2020 when investors fled traditional markets during the COVID-19 pandemic in favor of alternative assets, Stefan Rust, CEO of inflation data aggregator Truflation and former CEO of Bitcoin.com, previously told TechCrunch+.

In the wake of all this chaos, bitcoins And ether, the largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, saw a seven-day increase of around 15% and 9%, respectively, at press time, according to data from CoinMarketCap. The global market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies also rose 8.3% over the same period to around $1.1 trillion, down slightly from a weekly high of $1.14 trillion. Tuesday, the data show.

The market madness has apparently created bullish sentiment in the crypto economy; as traders responded positively to the news, overall market capitalization increased over the week and crypto app downloads increased.