So the banking system has various levels of regulation aimed at hindering money laundering activities. You have certain "Know Your Customer" requirements and banks are also required to file suspicious activity reports for certain situations (for instance a customer moving a large amount of money into or out of their accounts and then being cagey as fuck about where that money came from/where it is going, or engaging in "structuring" activities in order to evade reporting thresholds.) Usually next to fuck-all happens with these reports because our financial crime apparatus in this country is woefully underfunded and under staffed, but it can still help pile up evidence against you if you are involved in criminal activity that someone eventually gets around to investigating.
Money coming from certain industries/activities is considered "high risk" and requires "enhanced due diligence" on the part of the banks to make sure everything is on the up and up. One of those high risk sources of funds is, of course, Crypto (for reasons I hope are obvious to everyone at this point, regardless of your stance on Crypto.) If you're moving in huge amounts of money in from a crypto exchange, banks are going to have to do a lot of extra work to stay in compliance with these rules. If you don't make it easy for them, they're likely to sever the business relationship.
For some reason, this has been happening to a lot of figures like our boy Nick here. They just can't seem to explain where all their money comes from in a way that will make legitimate financial institutions want to continue doing business with them.
That this seems to be a problem for a lot of right wing figures is either proof of a government conspiracy to silence them if you believe the likes of Marc Anderseen, or just the natural result of their shady business practices if you pay attention to their specific complaints.
Either way, expect a lot of these already weak requirements and regulations to be significantly watered down in the coming years.
Of course, the funny thing about this is if any cryptocurrency actually functioned as, you know, a currency, the barriers to interfacing with the US banking system and its regulatory framework would be a moot issue.
Yeah, I had my bank account locked down by the bank after the EU money laundering rules came into effect.
Took me a while to meet their requirements. But I was never banned from banking services! My other accounts in other banks worked fine. The blocked account became fully operational once I’d addressed their money laundering concerns.
But perhaps his problem was that he actually committed money laundering. Or dealt with sanctioned parties. Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s on Russia’s payroll.
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u/StarWars_and_SNL 2d ago
Here’s your sign.