The lawmakers see a “ coordinated strategy ” to deny the digital asset industry access to banking that isn't related to a desire to cover banks.
Three Republican members of the United States House of Representatives Financial Services Committee have sent letters to the heads of U.S. banking regulatory services seeking data on possible coordinated efforts taken against digital asset enterprises. The letters follow up on ones sent to equal addresses by the lawmakers before.
The letters, taken out on April 25, were addressed to Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) chair MartinJ. Gruenberg, Federal Reserve System chair Jerome Powell, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) doing Comptroller MichaelJ. Hsu. The letters contained the same text with a personalized set of demands to see the services ’ records.
The letters embarked by recalling the Obama Administration’s purported Operation Choke Point which inspired banks to deny service to some types of business. They remained:
“Today, we are seeing the resurgence of coordinated action by the federal prudential regulators to suppress innovation in the United States. There is no clearer example than in the digital asset ecosystem.”
The letters ’ authors supplied examples of OCC Interpretive Letter 1179, the FDIC’s letter of April 2022, and the shared statement of the three services released in January. Despite the “run-of-the-shop fraud ” seen in the crypto industry, “ Digital asset activity isn't inherently risky," they say. additionally:
“Taken together, the actions of the Fed, FDIC, and OCC do not appear to be in reaction to recent events or the result of a sudden desire to protect financial institutions from risky behavior, but instead suggest a coordinated strategy to de-bank the digital asset ecosystem in the United States.”
The authors, Reps. Patrick McHenry, Bill Huizenga, and French Hill demand non-public records relating to messages between employees of each of the services addressed and the institutes they supervise in regard to the documents referenced.
(DEREK ANDERSEN, Cointelegraph, 2023)