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Operation Chokepoint 2.0: A complete timeline

Under President Biden, a specter haunted North America, a specter nobody could see except for those working at the intersection of Bitcoin and traditional finance. 

Like a band of beleaguered Macbeths, haunted by solitary visions of Banquo, the bitcoin industry and its professionals labored under the shadow of Operation Chokepoint 2.0, an underhanded Biden-ear initiative with the explicit goal of debanking the crypto industry. Many outside the industry dismissed it as a conspiracy theory lacking evidence. 

Well, it’s been a solid half decade for the conspiracy theorists, and it turns out they were right again on this one.

The U.S. House Committee on Financial Services provided the evidence last week in a report on its investigation into OCP 2.0. 

For the first time, the report concentrated in one place key dates, events, and actions taken by the Biden-era agencies, Biden’s White House, and the Federal Reserve. And it spells out exactly how these actions stonewalled the industry, creating impossible regulatory standards and compliance catch 22s that, in the worst of cases, fomented the failure of Silvergate, Signature, and Silicon Valley banks in 2023. 

Operation Chokepoint 2.0 was never on the books, and there were only a few agency level actions that were ever publicized (often under the janus-faced rationale that they were “anti-money laundering” and “anti-terrorism” measures). The operation was informal, and those who carried it out relied on confidential supervisory letters, private memos, and off-the-record meetings between agencies and banks to achieve their goals.

Thanks to the House report, we now have receipts for what these undisclosed actions looked like, plus a timeline of key events.

2021: Operation Chokepoint 2.0 begins

President Biden and his agencies began laying the groundwork for Operation Chokepoint 2.0 in 2021. The biggest action President Biden took in his inaugural year involved complicating Trump-ear guidance that allowed banks, among other things, to hold crypto. 

The actions in 2021 culminated, however, with probes by the FDIC into banks dealing with crypto clients. This “learn more” phase set the stage for more aggressive actions in following years.

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