Could anyone less ignorant than myself enlighten me?
You'll have to tolerate scare-mongering for the next few days, at least until Monday. Much of it appears to be to promote the idea of a government bailout, which (I hope) has little chance of occurring. If it did, then theoretically your taxes would be higher instead but instead it would likely just be funded by debt ie the govt debt would increase. The moral hazard created would be huge however, so the next time would be even worse.
There will also be scare-mongering about upcoming payrolls, but those will likely turn out to be not an issue as the FDIC moves to release some money on Monday and likely more throughout the week.
The bank has assets to cover _most_ of the deposits (if not all). It may take time, but there are mechanisms to cover that. Deposits will take a tiny haircut at most, or perhaps none at all.
The shareholders will be wiped out of course, so any ETF, mutual fund, etc holding SIVB shares will be lower.
But other than that, not much.