Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley took the stand earlier this month at a Senate hearing with one message—his crypto bank was cut off without warning. The bank Anchorage had been working with for two years pulled the plug overnight. No call. No explanation. Nothing.
“We had a bank that we had a growing relationship with for a number of years, who basically on a dime, decided to turn off our bank account,” McCauley said in an interview with CNBC on Saturday. He refused to name the bank, and an Anchorage spokesperson confirmed that the company is declining to disclose it.
McCauley isn’t alone. Crypto firms across the industry are reporting the same thing—U.S. banks suddenly shutting their doors on digital asset businesses. Executives claim this isn’t random. They’re calling it “Operation Choke Point 2.0”, an alleged coordinated effort under the Biden administration to push banks into cutting ties with crypto. The first “Operation Choke Point,” they say, was under Obama, when banks backing gun manufacturers and payday lenders got the same treatment.
Republicans launch probe into crypto debanking
The word “debanking” has put crypto executives in direct alignment with top Republicans in Congress and the White House. With Trump back in office, the GOP is investigating everything that happened under the previous administration.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, Trump directly accused JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America of politically motivated debanking. He claimed major financial institutions were shutting out conservatives under regulatory pressure. The banks denied everything, and Trump didn’t provide evidence, but the claim was enough to light a fire under the Republican-led investigation.
Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.), now chair of the Senate Banking Committee, is pushing the issue. At a February 5 hearing titled “Investigating the Real Impacts of Debanking in America”, he made it clear:
“It is incredibly alarming and disheartening to hear stories about financial institutions cutting off services to digital asset firms, political figures, and conservative-aligned businesses and individuals,” Scott said.
For McCauley, Republican control of Congress has given the crypto industry a megaphone. Anchorage Digital is a federally chartered crypto bank, and its sudden loss of banking access forced the company to lay off 20% of its workforce, including 70 U.S. employees.
“You can only imagine what was happening to the smaller entrepreneurs who didn’t have the resources to be able to marshal in order to keep their bank accounts open,” McCauley said. Many startups didn’t survive.
To this day, Anchorage clients still can’t send wire transfers to third parties, according to McCauley.
Crypto’s political influence grows under Trump
This isn’t just a policy battle anymore. It’s political warfare. The crypto industry helped elect pro-crypto candidates across the country in November, and now, it’s cashing in on those alliances.
Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange, spent over $75 million backing candidates in the 2024 election cycle. Its pro-crypto super PAC, Fairshake, got another $25 million pledge for 2026. Ripple contributed around $50 million.
Both companies spent years battling the SEC under former chairman Gary Gensler. The crypto industry hated Gensler. His SEC sued Coinbase. Ripple fought a billion-dollar lawsuit.
Now? Trump is paying them back.
His executive order on crypto promises “fair and open access” to financial services. He appointed venture capitalist David Sacks, a longtime Elon Musk ally, as the White House’s first AI and crypto czar.
The SEC is already rolling back restrictions that prevented banks from holding Bitcoin on their balance sheets. The FDIC is under pressure to reverse policies that made it harder for banks to serve digital asset firms.
House committee probes ‘Operation Choke Point 2.0’
Crypto executives are testifying before Congress about the alleged debanking crackdown under Biden.
On February 6, Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal and MARA Holdings CEO Fred Thiel testified before the House Financial Services Committee. The hearing was bluntly titled “Operation Choke Point 2.0: The Biden Administration’s Efforts to Put Crypto in the Crosshairs”.
“No one wants to see anyone denied basic banking services on the basis of their political views or whether they happen to work in an industry that might be out of favor with the current administration,” Grewal told CNBC.
The FDIC’s internal records, obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, confirm that the regulator sent “pause letters” urging banks to reconsider their relationships with crypto firms.
Nic Carter, founder of Castle Island Ventures, has been digging through those documents. He says the FDIC pressured banks to avoid crypto clients, even when there were no laws against it.
“The smoking gun is the communications between the regulators and the banks themselves,” Carter said.
The House committee is now investigating claims that bank executives and financial regulators secretly blacklisted crypto firms.
Thiel, in his testimony, said that the “discriminatory banking and financial policies threaten the digital asset ecosystem” and that “banks and payment processors are effectively deciding which industries can exist and grow within the U.S. economy.”
Silvergate, Signature, and the billion-dollar debanking scandal
The forced closures of Silvergate Bank and Signature Bank in 2023 remain one of the most controversial aspects of the debanking scandal. Both were FDIC-insured banks that catered to crypto firms. Both were shut down after the FTX collapse.
Silvergate Capital’s bankruptcy filings revealed that increased regulatory pressure—not insolvency—forced the bank to close. The bank was meeting capital requirements and had the funds to continue operations.
Signature Bank was seized by regulators in March 2023. Former Democratic Congressman Barney Frank, a Signature board member, openly claimed the FDIC shut it down to send an anti-crypto message. The FDIC later arranged a sale of Signature’s assets, excluding $4 billion in crypto-related deposits.
Mike Lempres, former Coinbase legal chief and chairman of Silvergate, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the federal government spent years vilifying crypto and using legally questionable tactics to force compliance.
Now, Trump’s administration is reversing that course.
Trump’s crypto empire and Musk’s financial takeover
For Trump, crypto isn’t just about politics. It’s money.
Before he was back in office, Trump and Melania launched meme coins that instantly added billions to their net worth. The projects raked in tens of millions in trading fees.
A week into his term, Trump launched Truth.Fi, the financial arm of Trump Media, promising ETFs, crypto investments, and “Patriot Economy” assets—all custodied with $250 million at Charles Schwab.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk is positioning X as an alternative bank. His vision? A full financial system inside his social media platform, letting users move funds between banks and digital wallets, make payments, and trade crypto—all inside X.
The industry is responding.
“It’s a brand new day for crypto in America,” said David Marcus, the former head of crypto at Meta and current CEO of infrastructure startup Lightspark. He called the Trump administration’s shift “a polarity flip of atmosphere and energy for our entire industry.”
The battle over crypto and banking is far from over. But with Trump, Congress, and the industry aligned, debanking may have just met its match.
