When a Wall Street banking giant and a crypto CEO start a public fight over debanking, the world takes notice and the back-and-forth gets messy.
Jack Mallers, CEO of crypto payments company Strike, dropped a social media bombshell on Nov. 23, saying JPMorgan closed all his accounts without cause.
“Last month (Sept. 2), J.P. Morgan Chase threw me out of the bank,” Mallers said in a post on X. “It was bizarre […] Every time I asked them why, they said the same thing: ‘We aren’t allowed to tell you.’”
The post went viral and received reactions from personalities including Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino who said: “I think it is for the best,” and Grant Cardone, a multibillionaire real estate mogul and equity fund manager, who, in an X post, called for a boycott and announced he transferred all his assets out of JPMorgan.
Bo Hines, a former digital assets adviser to President Donald Trump and now a strategic adviser to Tether, reminded the bank on X “you guys know Operation Chokepoint is over right? Just checking.” After the crypto-friendly president took office, regulators reversed many Biden-era directives against crypto entities.
“Operation Chokepoint 2.0 regrettably lives on,” said Senator Cynthia Lummis. “Policies like JP Morgan’s undermine confidence in traditional banks and send the digital asset industry overseas.”
While a banking giant debanking a company isn’t unusual and often gets unreported, this one hit a nerve with the crypto community, given Mallers’ and Strike’s positions in the industry and previous U.S. government crackdowns.
“Although big banks freeze accounts frequently, it’s difficult to ignore the timing of Mallers’ JPMorgan debanking,” said Timothy O’Regan, an emerging-market fund expert and IronWeave founder.
The debanking letter
Mallers sat on the debanking letter from JPMorgan Chase (JPMC) for two months before exposing it. In it, the bank notified the founder of Strike, a bitcoin payment app with an estimated 800,000 monthly active users, it closed his accounts due to concerning activity.
“We have decided to close your accounts,” Chase’s letter to Mallers reads, which led many to believe the closure related to anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) concerns JPMorgan Chase might have linked to Strike users.
“During the course of ongoing monitoring, we identified concerning activity on your account or an account that you are associated with. Under the Bank Secrecy Act and other regulations, financial institutions are obligated to periodically review our customers’ relationships,” the letter adds.
CoinDesk, seeking more clarity, contacted both parties for comments and to get to the bottom of this debanking saga.
Patricia Wexler, a JPMorgan spokesperson, declined to comment.
However, a source familiar with JPMorgan Chase told Coindesk that “JPMorgan banks crypto companies across the industry, provides payments services, and serves as a financial adviser.”
While the debate rages, Mallers decided to lay the saga to rest, at least for now. Strike’s press team declined to comment on the matter.
“We aren’t commenting any further here,” said Alex Modiano, a spokesperson for Mallers. Randall Woods, another lead Strike press officer, responded in the same way
What does this all mean? While both parties remain quiet, a source familiar with the banking giant pointed to secrecy rules and other issues by way of explanation. They also pointed to a Cato Institute X post published in connection with the topic, which says, “Reforming the confidentiality around the Bank Secrecy Act would go a long way toward achieving more transparency on debanking.”
A question of timing
Under the BSA, all banks are compelled to remain silent because FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) guidance prohibits Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) disclosures to avoid tipping off suspects in potential money laundering or other illicit finance investigations.
As for the timing, IronWeave’s O’Regan hinted that the sudden closure of Mallers’ accounts could be related to JPMorgan’s recent rollout of JPMCoin, which is similar to Strike.
They both move money extremely quickly, although one, JPMCoin, is exclusive and controlled by the bank, while the other, Strike, is open to the broader public.
Debanking a potential future competitor, just weeks after JPMorgan rolled out its own token, raised questions of potential conflict of interest, said O’Regan, who claimed that large U.S. banks are silently debanking crypto executives using the Banking Secrecy Act (BSA) as an excuse to provide no explanations.
“Debanking the CEO of a major bitcoin finance company as you roll out quasi-computing products could easily be perceived as casting a shadow over a competitor,” he added.