On Jan 23, Uniswap creator Hayden Adams tweeted that JPMorgan Chase had closed his bank accounts with “no notice or explanation.” Adams then went on to add that he is aware of “many individuals and companies who have been similarly targeted simply for working in the crypto industry” ending the post with the caption, ‘thanks for making it personal.’
Brian Quintenz, former Commodity Futures Trading Commission [CFTC] Commissioner who now works as a advisory partner on the a16z crypto team, chimed in to denounce the act terming it as ‘shadow de-banking of crypto‘ adding that “if the examiner told a bank that a certain customer is too risky and the bank ended that relationship, the bank is contractually prevented from telling that customer why.”
“Likely a shadow de-banking of crypto by @federalreserve or @USOCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] bank examiners, with direction from the top.”
Quintenz in order to emphasize his point cited a Wall Street Journal article by staunch crypto supporter, senator Cynthia Lummis. In it, Lummis accused the Federal Reserve of deliberately delaying as it’s yet to determine whether Wyoming’s special purpose depository institution or SPDIs are banks or not.
In response to Hayden’s tweet, there were several replies confirming that they too were blocked by banks or had accounts closed for dealings with crypto. Interestingly, Chase support responded to the Uniswap founder’s tweet, acknowledging the ‘less than ideal experience’ he had and asked the Uniswap CEO to contact their messaging system.
Is the latest incident of Uniswap CEO ‘s account closure a shady tactics adopted by banks ?
Expressing surprise, Democratic Candidate for Congress, Matt West, stated that ‘this is part of why we need clear regulatory framework in the US re: crypto and banks.‘ Having said that CEO of JPMorgan Jamie Damon last year called Bitcoin as worthless.
It is not just banks in the US that are coming down hard on crypto investors. Last year, an Australian investor sued Westpac and the ANZ bank for closing his accounts resulting in the loss of funds at the time. Looks like banks now have the perfect weapon against crypto, as this shadowy action can be used to secretly remove customers without having to justify those actions.