Thorough article on debanking in western context and for crypto companies specifically. If you were willing to spend four hours listening to a Joe Rogan guest and fooled yourself into feeling informed, you have no excuse not to read this.
https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunking/
"spend four hours listening to a Joe Rogan guest and fooled yourself into feeling informed" is so on the money
So many podcasts are like this skit its wild
Honestly I think I spent more time reading this than I did listening to Andresen on the topic ... and I still haven't finished!
(Btw I hate it, but w/e, lol)
Lola, is this your pseudonym?
Okay. So the smuggled assumptions and conflation of "old people getting scammed" to people getting their accounts closed because they are politically unpalatable is gross. This is that thing people do when they know little factoids then apply them at scale where they don't apply. AML requirements do often outline MSBs as high risk (nice little factoid). The point is they are using MSB as a cover for denial. The same way someone kicks a black kid out of his store because he doesn't like his race but uses "soliciting" as a pretense because he asked another patron for a dollar to cover the gumball.
This is the same with all regulatory classifications surrounding crypto. They just offhandedly announce "you are frauds." When asked how the bank cites AML guidelines around MSBs. It's all nonsense because no one understands what money is and they assume people with a lot of dollars must.
Political debanking is real and not at all like the juxtaposition of divorce and asking for a date. It's first of all a public accommodation not a person. Secondly the person you "asked on a date" have a mandate to "go on a date" with anyone from the public who has a need for their services. The risk deleveraging argument is just political cover to deny people you don't like. It's like the "you know a tomato is technically a fruit" BS in monetary form.
> The point is they are using MSB as a cover for denial.
If Marc Andreessen wants to make that claim to Rogans audience of millions, he should come with solid evidence and demonstrate some actual expertise in the topic.
I mean, this is like saying there's never evidence of discrimination without explicit pronouncement. There's implied rationale here.
I read it as, "there's no big conspiracy going on here, people are legitimately debanked, but that legitimacy comes from a horribly designed system that bundles lots of unrelated financial activities and risk profiles together, applies some arbitrarily regulated concerns, and then ends up barring people from what should be the basic right to transact"
Although, this does explain why I've seen lots of financial institutions be ok with receiving money from an exchange but not sending money to one. I guess one of those transfers carries a lot more "chargeback" risk to the institution than the other
’Very soon after making the decision to close your account the bank does not know specifically why it chose to close your account.
This strikes many people as Kafkaesque’ no shit!
'Moreover, questions of public policy are frequently political in a democracy. The ballot box is the ultimate check on government abuse of power' - at least in the UK I don't think so...Stuff like bank secrecy, aml/kyc, state surveillance seem to just roll on at a supranational level no matter which team gets into downing st.
Such a long article going to take more than one sitting...!
