#317—Court documents reveal Operation Choke Point 2.0

The alleged de-banking policy isn't a conspiracy theory

Dec 09, 2024

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Operation Choke Point 2.0 isn’t a conspiracy theory
Stuff happens

1. Operation Choke Point 2.0 isn’t a conspiracy theory

Newly revealed court documents appear to support allegations against the U.S. government for politically charged and discriminatory debanking practices.

Here’s CoinTelegraph (via Simon McLoughlin):

Court documents filed in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the United States Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) showed the US regulatory body asked certain financial institutions to pause crypto banking activities.
In a Dec. 6 filing in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, the court released “pause letters” sent by FDIC officials to the boards of directors for different US banks, whose names were redacted.
According to the letters sent in 2022, the FDIC requested the institutions “pause all crypto asset-related activity” in response to the uncertain regulations around digital assets.
“The FDIC will notify all FDIC-supervised banks at a later date when a determination has been made on the supervisory expectations for engaging in a crypto asset-related activity, including the need for any regulatory filings,” said some of the letters.
…
Other letters in the Dec. 6 filing told banks they may need to provide information before offering any additional services. Though much of the text has been redacted, some of the FDIC letters suggested that the financial institutions were considering activities related to cryptocurrencies.
“[T]he letters that show Operation Chokepoint 2.0 wasn’t just some crypto conspiracy theory,” said Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal in a Dec. 6 X post. “[The FDIC] is still hiding behind way overbroad redactions.”

Back in September, we shared Nic Carter’s investigation into the demise of Silverage Bank, which he argued was precipitated by regulators, not a failure of the bank itself, reigniting the narrative around Operation Choke Point 2.0, which, according to Carter, was a coordinated effort to unbank the digital asset industry.

Last month, a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen added fuel to the fire when he told Joe Rogan that he knew 30 startup founders that had been de-banked over the last four years:

It’s basically a privatized sanctions regime that lets bureaucrats do to American citizens the same thing that we do to Iran—kick you out of the financial system. And so this has been happening to all the crypto entrepreneurs in the last four years. This has been happening to a lot of the fintech entrepreneurs, anybody trying to start any kind of new banking service because they’re trying to protect the big banks. And then this has been happening, by the way, also in legal fields of economic activity that they don’t like.
So a lot of this started about 15 years ago with this thing called Operation Choke Point as marijuana started to become legal, as prostitution started to become legal, and then guns, which there’s always a fight about. Under the Obama administration, they started to de-bank legal marijuana businesses, esport businesses, and then gun shops and your gun manufacturers—you’re done, you’re out of the banking system.
If you’re running a medical marijuana dispensary in 2012, guess what, you’re doing your business all in cash because you literally can’t get a bank account. You can’t get a Visa terminal, you can’t process transactions, you can’t do payroll, you can’t do direct deposit, you can’t get insurance—none of that stuff is available. You’ve been sanctioned. And then this administration extended that concept to apply it to tech founders and crypto founders and then just generally political opponents.
Operation Choke Point 1.0 was 15 years ago against pot and guns. Choke Point 2.0 is primarily against their political enemy and then their disfavored tech startups, and it’s hit the tech world—we’ve had like 30 founders de-banked in the last four years. It’s been a big recurring pattern. This is one of the reasons why we ended up supporting Trump.

Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong would confirm Andreessen’s version of events on X soon after:

Can confirm this is true. It was one of the most unethical and un-American things that happened in the Biden administration, and my guess is we'll find Elizabeth Warren's fingerprints all over it (Biden himself was probably unaware).
We're still collecting documents via FOIA requests, so hopefully the full story emerges of who was involved and whether they broke any laws.
Warren and Gensler tried to unlawfully kill our entire industry, and it was a major factor in the Dems losing the election. The Democratic party should realize Warren is a liability and further distance themselves if they want to have any hope of rebuilding.

Relevant:

Proof of Operation Chokepoint 2.0

Yaka Stuff

#317—Court documents reveal Operation Choke Point 2.0

The alleged de-banking policy isn't a conspiracy theory

1. Operation Choke Point 2.0 isn’t a conspiracy theory

2. Stuff happens

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