Reporters Roundtable with Henry Felella | VP Crypto at Silicon Valley Bank | Genius PR

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-05

[00:00:14]Kim here at Genius PR. We are at the Super Moon event here at Digital Summit Week with Henry from Silicon Valley Bank. Um your vice president working in crypto client. So first and foremost, I'd love to learn more about what you do.

[00:00:27]>> Yeah, I ask myself that question all the time. Um, so I've been in the industry for 10 years. Uh, started off in structured financial products, signed to family offices on the crypto side. Um, moved throughout multiple different companies and was a founder. Uh, now I'm with SVB. I bank all of our, uh, preede seedstage companies on the crypto side, nationally, our emerging managers, and then growth over on the West Coast. Uh, really focused on trying to add value to our clients, right? Banking is pretty commoditized. Um, and and the thing that we can provide is how can we play connector? How can we make sure that we're bringing value to our clients outside of just the platform despite the platform being competitive?

[00:01:03]>> Awesome. So, tell us more uh when it comes to these clients specifically, what sort of crypto products are you actually providing to them and what are you helping them navigate when it comes to finding solutions to their problems?

[00:01:14]>> Yeah, a little bit of nuance here. Uh we are a commercial bank which means we operate entirely in fiat still. Um with that said, we offer the crypto companies your typical suite of commercial banking products. That means operational accounts, that means yield accounts, that means different kinds of investment products. Uh international um we have different international solutions. I won't get into it. Um but really it's a it's a company that needs to to grow, right? And they need to grow outside of their Mercury account or other neo banks. They need custom banking solutions and they need a banker on the other side of the phone.

[00:01:46]>> Awesome. Are there are the other banks also operating in the same space at the moment? Um how competitive this is the space?

[00:01:53]>> Yeah, if I said it wasn't competitive, I would be lying. um that's part of the fun. Um so there's a lot of banks operating in the space. People are starting to uh be able to get comfortable with more higher risk clients. Uh and what we classify as higher risk clients is anybody who operates in crypto. Um historically you could end up being debanked by having different transactions with exchanges like Coinbase or Kraken. Um and now banks are starting to get more comfortable on the commercial side with having those. But we still need to go through a process of of due diligence and and understanding what the clients are doing, right? We need to understand their uh flow of funds. We need to understand the way that these companies are operating and making sure that we can get comfortable providing them with the full suite of banking solutions. And we are uniquely positioned in that because we have a cryptonnative compliance team. They go through, they audit and or or they go through and diligence all of the clients. And uh that gets us to a place where we know that we're not going to end up having to debank them unless uh you know, somebody's going off and and starting interactions with a sanctioned country or something like that. But as long as we're comfortable up front, we we can pretty reliably bank you all the way through different life stages of your company.

[00:03:01]Awesome. So we are right now in the United States of America. You guys have put a lot of legislation in place when it comes to the Genius Act and the Clarity Act. How is that affecting your business in general when it comes to these things?

[00:03:12]>> Uh yeah, I think that's an interesting question. I I think more so than anything else, it it gives us clarity, right? It gives us an understanding of what these clients are are able to do uh without just operating in gray areas, but instead having divi uh defined spaces. It also gives us the ability to start exploring other solutions. um and and it gives us kind of the green light to say, okay, if our if we have legislation in place that that allows us to operate in the space, what does it look like to do that? That's amazing to hear. I think it's a great step when it comes to to these things, especially we've seen this week with the digital asset summit week, all these institutional clients coming in, companies, but also with startups as well and companies in general. What have you seen this week coming here in New York that has kind of like opened your eyes in terms of the possibilities? um of the convergence in crypto instit and institutionalization in the in the US.

[00:04:04]>> Yeah, I mean I think the biggest takeaway I have is crypto people actually own suits or they went out and purchased them. Um no be like kind of on a serious note um it's refreshing to see the fact that we're we're becoming a little bit more formalized as an industry right when I started uh 10 years ago it was it was clear that this was going to be a uh not just like individually life-changing experience but it was going to be a worldchanging experience and the way that uh we operated as financial institutions was eventually going to change and I think we're starting to see the appetite from that from financial institutions but even more so starting to see the right companies come into place and really structure themselves in a way that can cater to the right financial institutions.

[00:04:45]>> Awesome. And obviously we are here at Super Ventures, you know, they obviously work, incubate, invest into startups and so on as well. What's your message to startups from Silicon Valley Bank? What do you want to help improve and also help bring to the table?

[00:05:01]>> If you're getting funding from uh Super Moon or you are incubating here, come talk to me. I can provide you banking services. We can uh figure out the right people to get you in touch with within my network and uh we can hopefully help you guys uh understand why it's important to have a true banking relationship outside of just your traditional bank accounts.

[00:05:22]>> And uh how do people get in contact with you?

[00:05:25]>> Oh man, you're asking me to give my information away. Um find me on LinkedIn. Um it's Henry Fella. Um or if uh you know somebody here, I'll give somebody my telegram and uh maybe you can access me there.

[00:05:39]>> That's a maybe. But yeah, to meet Henry, come to meet him in person at the conferences. Um but yeah, thank you so much for your time today, guys. Thank you, Henry.

[00:05:46]>> Of course. Yeah, thank you guys for having us. Uh this been a great event and uh it's really exciting to see the maturation of our industry continue.

[00:05:53]>> Perfect. Awesome. Thank you. Cheers.