An extended market price drawdown (crypto winter) throughout 2022 has tested the crypto industry’s mettle, and more recently, a crackdown by United States regulators on some prominent entities like Coinbase, Binance and Kraken has further shaken the sector.
So maybe it’s only natural for the industry to employ colorful, vivid language to describe what’s been happening. There’s a notion making the rounds that the U.S. government is out to “un-bank” or “de-platform” the crypto sector. This process even has a name: “Operation Choke Point 2.0.”
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is using the financial rails “as an extra-judicial political cudgel” to crack down on the crypto industry, wrote Castle Island Ventures’ Nic Carter, who described it as a coordinated, multi-agency effort to discourage banks from dealing with crypto firms.
According to Carter, this alleged strategy follows a template used earlier by the Obama and Trump administrations. In 2018, under federal pressure, “Bank of America and Citigroup de-platformed firearms companies, and BoA began to report client firearm purchases to the federal government,” he wrote.
In late March, Quantum Economics’ Mati Greenspan told Cointelegraph that this so-called un-banking could “already be underway,” particularly in light of the recent collapses of crypto-friendly banks like Silvergate, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. In Greenspan’s view:
“Crypto is seen as a ‘threat’ to the U.S. dollar’s dominance in global trade — a significant and long-standing benefit to the U.S.”
In that same article, attorney Michael Bacina warned that the “regulation by enforcement model” being practiced in the U.S. would simply “drive crypto-asset innovation offshore,” and on April 1, the CEO of a French digital assets data provider told The Wall Street Journal that U.S. agency actions could “shift the center of gravity of crypto assets trading and investments” toward Hong Kong.
A coordinated effort by regulators?
It’s time to step back and ask: Are these fears justified? It is sometimes difficult to separate the truth from the tight knot of hyperbole in the crypto space, but are U.S. regulators really seeking to “de-platform” crypto?
“I don’t think there’s necessarily a concerted or intentional effort by regulators to ‘de-platform’ crypto,” David Shargel, a partner at the Bracewell law firm, told Cointelegraph. “But, the crypto ecosystem has moved from a niche product to the mainstream, and regulators are playing catchup.” Regulators also recognize that crypto isn’t going anywhere, he added.
Does the suggestion that cryptocurrencies represent a threat to the U.S. dollar’s dominance in global trade provide a further incentive to ban them?
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Crypto may indeed have the potential to disrupt global trade flows — at least to some minor degree — but the dollar is more threatened by other geopolitical factors “such as the U.S.’ own waning influence on the global stage, the rise of China, and Western sanctions on Russia,” Zhong Yang Chan, head of research at CoinGecko, told Cointelegraph.
Recently, International Monetary Fund experts said, “Crypto assets, including stablecoins, are not yet risks to the global financial system.”
“The general consensus seems to be that the dollar remains well entrenched as the world’s dominant currency, and that the use of cryptocurrency, standing alone, won’t change that — barring some other major political or economic shift,” Bracewell’s Shargel added.
“A perfect storm brewing”
Still, the administration in Washington may be getting nervous about the U.S. dollar, said John Deaton, a managing partner at Deaton Law Firm, who also runs the CryptoLaw website, and has supported Ripple in its litigation with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Speaking to Cointelegraph, he said there is a convergence of issues at play here:
“China and Russia have agreed to trade oil and gas in the Chinese yuan, not U.S. dollars. Kenya’s president has told his people to dump their USD. Saudi Arabia may agree to trade oil in non-USD denominations.”
At the same time, the U.S. government needs to print more money, adding to an already high inflationary environment, leading people to look at gold, silver and Bitcoin (BTC) as alternatives. “The fear isn’t just about crypto — it’s that a perfect storm is brewing against the U.S. dollar,” Deaton said.
Deaton deems the Operation Chokepoint 2.0 scenario plausible, but he also has a nuanced view of crypto regulation and U.S. regulators. “If we are being honest, the crypto industry has caused itself quite a few self-inflicted wounds, and the industry is to blame for giving itself a black eye when it comes to public perception.” Many in the crypto industry, like himself, “don’t oppose regulation; we seek it,”…
cointelegraph.com