Latest news with #OperationChokepoint2.0
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
JD Vance Calls Crypto Market Structure Bill a ‘Priority' for Trump Administration
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Establishing a clear and pro-innovation regulatory framework for the crypto industry via a market structure bill is a priority for U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, Vice President J.D. Vance said Wednesday. Speaking to a massive crowd at Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas, Vance said that a regulatory framework is necessary to fully incorporate cryptocurrency into the mainstream U.S. economy, as well as to prevent future governments from rolling back the Trump administration's crypto-friendly policies. 'I hope that our party is in charge for a long time, but nothing is ever guaranteed in politics. So the best way to ensure that crypto is part of the mainstream economy is through a market structure bill that champions and doesn't restrict the extraordinary value that bitcoin and other digital assets represent,' Vance said at the event, which organizers said drew about 35,000 attendees. 'We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to unleash innovation and use it to improve the lives of countless American citizens, but if we fail to create regulatory clarity now, we risk chasing this $3 trillion industry offshore in search of a friendlier jurisdiction, and President Trump is going to fight to fight to make sure that does not happen.' Vance said the Trump administration is hopeful that the GENIUS Act, the Senate's stablecoin bill, will hit the president's desk soon, allowing Congress to turn its attention to a market structure bill. He also said that the administration continues to work to 'clean up the wreckage that the [Biden] administration left us,' including the so-called 'regulation by enforcement' approach to crypto practiced by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under then-Chair Gary Gensler, and the widespread debanking of crypto companies, dubbed by the industry as Operation Chokepoint 2.0. 'Operation Chokepoint 2.0 is dead and it's not coming back under the Trump administration,' Vance said. 'We reject the Biden administration's legacy of death by a thousand enforcement actions… We fired Gary Gensler, and we're gonna fire everybody like him," he added, though Gensler resigned the day Trump was sworn in Vance thanked the crypto industry, including Gemini's Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss and Coinbase, for their early support of Trump's campaign, attributing some of its success — as well as the successful elections of other crypto-friendly politicians like Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) — to the crypto industry's political support. 'Take the momentum of your political involvement in 2024 and carry it forward into 2026 and beyond,' Vance said. In addition to urging the industry to stay involved in U.S. politics, Vance asked bitcoiners to stay abreast of developments in artificial intelligence (AI). 'Remember that what happens in AI is very much going to affect, in good and bad ways, what happens to bitcoin and, of course, what happens to bitcoin is very much going to affect what happens in AI,' Vance said, adding: 'Make sure you're keeping tabs on and staying involved in what's happening in artificial intelligence. I don't want America to be negatively affected by what's happening in AI, and the best way to ensure that smart people are at the AI conversation is to ensure that Bitcoin is part of the artificial intelligence conversation.' Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Axios
3 days ago
- Business
- Axios
Vance doubles down on crypto support
Vice-President JD Vance addressed the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas Wednesday, promising to eliminate aggressive regulation of the crypto industry and promote a pro-growth legal framework for stablecoins. Why it matters: Last year then-candidate Donald Trump cemented the Bitcoin community's support for his re-election by becoming the first presidential candidate to appear at the world's largest Bitcoin-focused event. The big picture: Last year Trump made big news, using the conference's stage to float the idea of a U.S. bitcoin reserve. Vance's speech Wednesday contained no such bombshells. "Crypto is a hedge against bad policy making from Washington, no matter what party is in control," Vance told the crowd. "I'm here today to say loud and clear with President Trump, crypto finally has a champion and an ally in the White House," he added later. Vance made three points about the policy priorities of the White House, which will sound familiar to anyone who has been following the topic in Congress this year. "Our administration, we prioritize eliminating the rules, the red tape and lawfare that we saw aimed at crypto by our predecessors. We're ending the weaponization of federal regulations against this community," he said. "To put it simply, Operation Chokepoint 2.0 is dead and it's not coming back under the Trump administration," Vance said, referring to the name critics have given to what has increasingly looked like a coordinated effort by regulators to keep the crypto industry from accessing traditional banking services. Since Trump's inauguration, banking regulators have withdrawn guidance they had previously issued that served as the basis for this reluctance by bank supervisors. Vance said the second priority was to pass stablecoin legislation, which would allow dollar-backed cryptocurrencies to be issued and traded with clear regulatory guardrails in the U.S. The Trump family's own involvement in the crypto industry, including stablecoins, has been an impediment to moving stablecoin legislation as swiftly as it might have otherwise. Finally, Vance said the White House supports defining how other digital assets should be regulated with a "market structure" bill, which would define a broad scheme for how crypto assets would be regulated in the U.S. "We want our fellow Americans to know that crypto and digital assets, and particularly bitcoin, are part of the mainstream economy and are here to stay," Vance said. The bottom line: Vance signaled that the White House sees alignment between the attendees at Bitcoin 2025 and the administration, by urging them to keep the political pressure up.
Axios
3 days ago
- Business
- Axios
Vice-president Vance doubles down on crypto support
Vice-President JD Vance addressed the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas Wednesday, promising to eliminate aggressive regulation of the crypto industry and promote a pro-growth legal framework for stablecoins. Why it matters: Last year then-candidate Donald Trump cemented the Bitcoin community's support for his re-election by becoming the first presidential candidate to appear at the world's largest Bitcoin-focused event. The big picture: Last year Trump made big news, using the conference's stage to float the idea of a U.S. bitcoin reserve. Vance's speech Wednesday contained no such bombshells. "Crypto is a hedge against bad policy making from Washington, no matter what party is in control," Vance told the crowd. "I'm here today to say loud and clear with President Trump, crypto finally has a champion and an ally in the White House," he added later. Vance made three points about the policy priorities of the White House, which will sound familiar to anyone who has been following the topic in Congress this year. "Our administration, we prioritize eliminating the rules, the red tape and lawfare that we saw aimed at crypto by our predecessors. We're ending the weaponization of federal regulations against this community," he said. "To put it simply, Operation Chokepoint 2.0 is dead and it's not coming back under the Trump administration," Vance said, referring to the name critics have given to what has increasingly looked like a coordinated effort by regulators to keep the crypto industry from accessing traditional banking services. Since Trump's inauguration, banking regulators have withdrawn guidance they had previously issued that served as the basis for this reluctance by bank supervisors. Vance said the second priority was to pass stablecoin legislation, which would allow dollar-backed cryptocurrencies to be issued and traded with clear regulatory guardrails in the U.S. The Trump family's own involvement in the crypto industry, including stablecoins, has been an impediment to moving stablecoin legislation as swiftly as it might have otherwise. Finally, Vance said the White House supports defining how other digital assets should be regulated with a "market structure" bill, which would define a broad scheme for how crypto assets would be regulated in the U.S. "We want our fellow Americans to know that crypto and digital assets, and particularly bitcoin, are part of the mainstream economy and are here to stay," Vance said. The bottom line: Vance signaled that the White House sees alignment between the attendees at Bitcoin 2025 and the administration, by urging them to keep the political pressure up.
Forbes
14-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
OCC Opens Doors For Crypto Money Transmitters
Crypto companies have struggled to obtain basic banking services for several years. This problem has been given the friendly name 'Operation Chokepoint 2.0,' harkening to the crackdown on payday lenders and other 'high risk' category businesses from 2013 to 2015. This crackdown expanded to legitimate startups and resulted in blowback at the federal level. Last week, if any behind-the-scenes, coordinated 'operation' has been keeping crypto companies down, the OCC signaled the end of that era with Interpretative Letter 1184. The OCC's letter clarified that national banks and federal savings associations can engage in crypto-asset activities on behalf of customers without seeking prior approval. Their attitude tracks the OCC's 2020 guidance allowing banks to custody crypto, facilitate stablecoin payments, and run blockchain nodes. Although the May 2025 guidance only covers federal banks, state banks often look to federal guidance to determine their acceptable risk profile. It is a near certainty that state banks will see the OCC's guidance and decide that banking crypto is, once again, fair game. The letter guidance should operate as a key signal to banks that not only can they bank crypto customers, but they can also bank crypto companies. One hallmark of Chokepoint 2.0 has been crypto companies seeking money transmitter licenses (or 'MTLs') could not do so because they could not obtain trust accounts or 'FBO' (for the benefit of) accounts at major banks. This means any startup wishing to compete against the likes of Coinbase or Kraken has effectively been stopped before they can start. Without a trust or FBO account (often called a 'transactional' account) at a bank, a company cannot successfully apply for MTLs. This chokehold has been part of the reason new centralized exchanges struggle to even launch within the U.S., and we do not have robust early-stage domestic competition for such exchanges. Beyond that, any company wishing to act as a stablecoin on- or off-ramp, or to perform cross-border remittance in cryptocurrency, or to even launch a stablecoin, will find incredible frustration when they reach the MTL stage of their lifecycle because of the years-long stubbornness within both federal and state banks refusing to provide transactional accounts to crypto MTLs. After the OCC's guidance, federal and state banks have the freedom to bank crypto companies seeking MTLs. While many banks will still consider these customers 'high risk' due to anti-money laundering concerns, the OCC's guidance gives these banks the runway to bring crypto MTLs back into the fold of U.S. financial services. By the end of this year, expect to see more white-label agreements between crypto companies and banks, resulting in crypto-specific services within mainstream banking applications. Or, expect to see more sponsor agreements between banks and crypto companies, where traditional crypto apps are able to offer expanded banking services. By next year, as MTLs get granted to more and more crypto-focused companies, we will see a range of non-bank financial institutions offering stablecoin ramps, new stablecoin products, DeFi products, and other interesting crypto applications - regardless of what happens in Congress with respect to any crypto-specific bills. The OCC letter opens the door for a range of potential applications, and now that the doors have been nudged open, builders may be pushing through in droves.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Bitcoin Will Replace U.S. Dollar In 10 Years, Says Billionaire VC Tim Draper
Within a decade, bitcoin will replace U.S. dollar dominance and become the standard currency underpinning the international economy, according to billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper. '10 years, something like that. It may be a little less,' Draper said in a wide-ranging Spotlight interview with CoinDesk. Draper reiterated his prediction that bitcoin will rise to $250,000 by the end of 2025, and that after a decade it will be 'infinity against the dollar because there won't be a dollar.' 'Once I can buy my food, my clothing, my shelter, pay my taxes, all in Bitcoin and it's a better way to collect taxes. For sure, there won't be any reason to hold onto any [dollars] and bitcoin will be the primary source of owning wealth,' said Draper. 'The good news here is that banks can now hold your bitcoin and your fiat currency… but you don't want to be in line at the banks trying to get your dollars out to put them into bitcoin when there is a transformation.' Draper warned there will be a run on fiat banks and a global shift to the Bitcoin standard as trust in governments wane and decentralized technology replaces the traditional banking system. This was especially evident when Silicon Valley Bank ('SVB') collapsed in March 2023. 'I got calls from 15 companies, portfolio companies, and they were all saying, I can't make payroll,' said Draper. 'So every treasury of every company that I fund, I recommend that they have bitcoin along with fiat in banks, so that when there are bank failures, or if people stop taking fiat, then they'll be able to make payroll anyway.' SVB's shuttering was followed by the collapse of Signature Bank and preceded by the liquidation of Silvergate Bank. All three financial institutions had ties to the digital assets industry and were impacted by 'contagion effects' in the aftermath of failed crypto exchange FTX, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. But crypto companies have found evidence their demise was accelerated by a covert government debanking campaign, known as Operation Chokepoint 2.0, after a previous government effort to sever controversial but legal businesses from banking. Draper views bitcoin as a better technology and software that will replace banks and government-issued currency. At an early age, he learned there is precedent in the U.S. for currency crisis when his father gave him a million dollar confederate bill that was essentially worthless. 'Confederates lost the war to the Union and so there was huge inflation in Confederate money and people were paying a million dollars for just $1 of Union money,' said Draper. 'In effect, we're going through a similar time now.' Draper is a bitcoin maximalist who believes stablecoins are a bridge to bitcoin that will onboard people to utilize digital currencies, but ultimately they are as flawed as the governments that sanction them. 'Stablecoins are subject to inflation. They will inflate if the government prints too much money. They will be worth less and less and less over time, whereas bitcoin is not subject to that,' said Draper. Even though U.S. President Donald Trump's global tariff policies go against Draper's belief in free trade, they hasten his prediction that the U.S. dollar will weaken. The dollar index has dropped almost 8% year to date to 99.96, its lowest level since April 2022. The Trump administration is widely speculated to be analysing ways to devalue the dollar further to make U.S. exports more globally competitive. Nevertheless, Draper is hopeful the U.S. government will negotiate levies down so that trade partners buy more U.S. goods and resume an open market. Within the U.S., Draper is more confident about domestic tech innovation now that the Securities and Exchange Commission and other federal regulators are 'more open to creativity' and have stepped away from the practice of regulation by enforcement. Other technologies he is invested in include genetics. His early investment in Colossal Biosciences made headlines when the genetics lab created a new species of dire wolf and gene-edited 'woolly mice' into existence using a mix of mutations modelled on woolly mammoths. These efforts to 'de-extinct' species aim to restore earth's biological diversity, but Draper believes they will eventually help humans communicate with animals. 'Dogs can smell 10,000 times as well as we can,' said Draper. 'My theory is that it's usually when they're really happy and they like you, they sneeze on you. What they're doing is telling you a story, they sneeze on you and then, '[Here] are all the things that I've done. These are all the things I've smelled.'' Draper believes advances in genetics and artificial intelligence will eventually decode the language of birds that 'must have 500 different words for wind' and a better understanding of the weather. Humans could also learn from talking to ants about their population management. 'Let's start communicating with animals. I think it'll be great and we are getting there,' said Draper. 'It's slow. That's 50 years out.' As for artificial intelligence, the most cynical programmers warn that AI's will eventually dismiss humans as mere carbon bodies with limited use as energy sources, but Draper remains the perpetual optimist. 'I think that humans are going to adapt,' he said. When artificial intelligence replaces human labor, Draper trusts people will resiliently find new jobs with their newfound productivity, make greater impact, and 'gain in quality of life.' Draper believes humans will eventually merge with AI by programming embryos and linking human brains to wifi and other technologies. 'I think it's going to be incredibly amazing for somebody today who's still alive 50 years from now, because they're gonna look back and say, 'God, those poor people, they were all stuck on earth, just earth,' said Draper. 'They had to actually ask their phone for knowledge instead of having their mind anticipate the need for knowledge.'
