Stablecoins are a critical countermeasure to Operation Chokepoint

Boosting financial inclusion is one of crypto’s strongest value propositions. Yet, ironically, the banking crisis has effectively de-banked the crypto industry itself, at least in the United States.

How things panned out with Silvergate, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature — the three crypto-friendly U.S. banks — reeks of what Nic Carter called “Operation Chokepoint 2.0.” There’s good merit to this claim, though naysayers peddle conspiracy theory allegations with much harshness.

Signature, for one, did not face a bank run. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation still took the bank over in a jiffy. Anonymous sources even alleged the FDIC had asserted that any purchaser “must agree to give up all the crypto business,” though the agency walked back those claims.

I don’t want to alarm, but since the turn of the year, a new Operation Choke Point type operation began targeting the crypto space in the US. it is a well-coordinated effort to marginalize the industry and cut of its connectivity to the banking system – and it’s working

— nic carter (@nic__carter) February 7, 2023

Crypto not only has the resilience but also the tools to fight back — by leveraging stablecoins to minimize bank dependence. Besides solving an immediate crisis, it can also provide the ground to establish crypto as a self-sufficient and parallel financial system. That was Satoshi’s vision, after all.

U.S. regulators are shooting themselves in the foot

There’s a reason why most regulatory authorities — except in some progressive jurisdictions — have their guns blazing for crypto. Their power rests on the toxic relationship between governments, money printers, big corporations and oligopolies disguised as banking systems. The non-intermediated, permissionless and autonomous systems that crypto enables threatens this anti-individual nexus to its very core.

Our journey toward a more equitable, individual-centric world of crypto was never meant to be easy. The hyper-aggressive response from regulators is also pretty much in line with the expectations. But somehow the authorities, especially in the U.S., don’t seem to realize that their actions are self-destructive.

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