The Government Conspiracy Against Crypto - Marginal REVOLUTION
marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/03/the-government-conspiracy-against-crypto.html
What Jamie wrote
My view on the position that we should expect from government regarding crypto is outlined in my post on polarizing technology. I believe that we will see decades of actions to try and fight the power that crypto disrupts.
This is a perfect time for the government to attack. Crypto is still down significantly from highs. Banks are under pressure so there is cover for actions.
A sharply worded whitepaper from law firm Cooper and Kirk accuses regulators at the FDIC and the FED of an illegal and unconstitutional attack on crypto done without cover of law or Congressional approval. Cooper and Kirk are one of the most powerful and influential law firms in Washington. The firm’s attorneys have frequently appeared before the Supreme Court and as of 2021 “six former interns or associates of Cooper & Kirk [were] serving as U.S. Supreme Court clerks.” So this broadside isn’t coming from an obscure and unconnected law firm:
Recent stories in the financial press have uncovered a coordinated campaign by prudential bank regulators to drive crypto businesses out of the financial system. Bank regulators have published informal guidance documents that single out cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency customers as a risk to the banking system. Businesses in the cryptocurrency marketplace are losing their bank accounts, or their access to the ACH network, suddenly, and with no explanation from their bankers. The owners and employees of cryptocurrency firms are even having their personal accounts closed without explanation. And over the past two weeks, federal regulators have shut down a solvent bank that was known to be serving the crypto industry and, although it is required to resolve banks through the “least cost resolution” to the Deposit Insurance Fund, the FDIC chose to shutter rather than sell the part of the bank that serves digital asset customers, costing the Fund billions of dollars.
We need to expect this type of skirmish to continue for many years. We still haven't settled on encryption, and crypto is even more complicated.