Marc Andreessen explained that the methods and level of repression that the administration of US President Joe Biden undertook as part of Operation Chokepoint 2.0 for direct or indirect connections of companies and their founders with the crypto industry were so unprecedented that they put participants in the digital industry on a par with illegal arms and drug dealers.
“The outgoing administration expanded the Chokepoint 2.0 concept to apply it to the founders of crypto companies and then to all political opponents in general, denying them access to financial services,” Andreessen said.
The nature of debanking in the US cryptocurrency industry involves a high level of pressure on financial institutions. Co-founder Andreessen Horowitz noted that over the past four years, the Biden administration has managed to deprive more than 30 founders of cryptocurrency projects of bank support, and this was one of the reasons why Andreessen Horowitz began supporting Donald Trump.
Andreessen’s position is shared by the head of the Coinbase crypto exchange, Brian Armstrong. He added that Coinbase’s legal department holds copies of more than 20 FDIC order letters that the regulator sent to US financial institutions demanding that they not allow crypto companies to receive banking services.
Andreessen’s statement caused viral reaction in the crypto community. Many enthusiasts industries and startup founders told about their own encounters with debanking by financial institutions. Jered Kenna, founder of US cryptocurrency exchange Tradehill and brokerage firm TradeZero, said:
“I had a whole table of banks refusing me after I started Tradehill and I’m still banned from HSBC, BofA, Chase, Citi and many more,” wrote Kenna on social media X.
The day before, the non-profit advocacy group Blockchain Association sent a letter to US President-elect Donald Trump and the new Congress outlining a plan to reform the regulation of the cryptocurrency industry.
Source: Bits
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