The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation published a staff study in May 2026 documenting, in precise numeric detail, how crypto-sector depositors and fintech escrow accounts helped trigger the swiftest bank runs ever recorded in the United States.
The study covers deposit flows at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Signature Bank (SBNY), and First Republic Bank (FRB) during their March 2023 collapses. FDIC Chairman Travis Hill stated plainly: "This study provides a highly detailed account of deposit flows during the fastest bank runs in U.S. history."
The sharpest case is Signature Bank. Active escrow deposits — pooled customer funds held for investment companies, digital asset firms, and banking-as-a-service fintechs — represented 13–15% of SBNY's total deposits before the run began. Between March 7 and March 17, 2023, those balances fell 88%. The drop was 83% in just two business days — the largest percentage decline of any primary deposit type at the bank.
What made that flight so fast was the near-total absence of deposit insurance. More than 99.5% of SBNY's active escrow balances were uninsured. At FRB, the uninsured share for comparable accounts was 99%. Beneficial owners of those pooled funds had both the legal right and the technical ability to move money immediately; they did.
The pattern held across all three failures. Uninsured deposits fell 68% at SBNY, 62% at SVB, and 47% at FRB in the same ten-day window ending March 17. Exclude the emergency $30 billion consortium deposit injected into FRB on March 16, and FRB's uninsured flight reaches 71%. Insured retail depositors largely stayed put. The split is the study's core finding: insurance status — and the mobile, institutionally controlled nature of crypto-adjacent balances — determined who ran and when.
Wire transfer data underscores the velocity. SBNY depositors submitted $23.3 billion in outbound wire requests on March 10, 2023, alone.
The study's release is timed — whether intentionally or not — against a significant regulatory reversal. In early 2025 the FDIC issued FIL-7-2025, rescinding the 2022 rule (FIL-16-2022) that required banks to seek prior approval before engaging in crypto-related activities. U.S. banks can now accept crypto-sector deposits without a pre-clearance hurdle. The FDIC's own data on what those deposits did in March 2023 lands, therefore, as an immediate risk-management reference for institutions now re-entering this space.
The full staff study is available on the FDIC's Center for Financial Research page.