When Shan Hanes, the former CEO of Heartland Tri-State Bank, was sentenced to 293 months in prison for his part in an embezzlement scheme that saw him direct over $47 million dollars into a “pig butchering” scheme, it was assumed that the failure of the bank would lead to a “complete loss of equity for investors.”

However, thanks to the intervention of Tether and its willingness to blacklist addresses, those investors will receive compensation.

An Amended Judgement filed today notes that Hanes was forfeiting his claim to funds held in 0xef2797225aCEF65d583F157bbAf023C290D0e7dB, an Ethereum address that the judgment notes is “held by or under the care or custody of Tether Limited.”

Checking this address in the tether token contract allowed Protos to confirm that it has been blacklisted by Tether and can no longer transact using the tether token.

Read more: Tether gives FBI peek behind the curtain

Fortune reported that yesterday Judge John W. Broomes was able to inform all shareholders that they would be reimbursed in full for their investments.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation had already fully backstopped depositors at this institution. 

Tether freezing this address is likely part of its cooperation with the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

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Partially state-owned $20 billion German bank Commerzbank has received acquisition interest from Italian lending giant, UniCredit.

Executives for the two European companies are meeting for initial discussions tomorrow in what could be a significant move to advance crypto in European banking through Commerzbank’s partnership with Deutsche Börse.

Specifically, a subsidiary of Deutsche Börse, Crypto Finance, is working with Commerzbank to offer bitcoin and ether trading for corporate customers in Germany.

UniCredit has not yet proposed a formal bid for Commerzbank. It has, however, increased its equity stake to approximately 21% and has applied for regulatory approval to increase it up to 29.9%.

The German government still owns a 12% stake in Commerzbank and has expressed opposition to the takeover. Certain members of Commerzbank’s board have also voiced opposition to the move.

The crypto impact of a UniCredit-Commerzbank deal

Commerzbank became the first German universal bank to obtain a crypto custody license under the German Banking Act in November 2023.

Crypto Finance, established in 2017, has four licenses from Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority known as BaFin.

Read more: European Central Bank says crypto is dead, but is it?

The potential acquisition, merger, takeover, or otherwise of Commerzbank by UniCredit could advance unification in the European bloc’s famously incomplete banking union.

Specifically, the acquisition could ease ‘sovereign-bank loop’ problems in Germany by creating a cross-border banking entity less tied to a single country’s economy. Despite a shared currency, cross-border banking mergers in Europe remain exceedingly rare.

Its impact on crypto could also be significant, allowing Italian and German companies to access fiat on- and off-ramps for bitcoin and ether via a major banking partner with enviable licenses.

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Evolve Bank and Trust has agreed to a cease-and-desist order with the Federal Reserve after it “found that Evolve engaged in unsafe and unsound banking practices” surrounding some of its fintech partnerships.

Furthermore, the Federal Reserve found that Evolve did not have “controls sufficient to comply with anti-money laundering laws.” 

Evolve has been thrust into the banking industry spotlight recently as many fintech users have had their accounts frozen due to the failure of Synapse Financial Technologies, the middleman that connected Evolve to these various fintechs. 

The problem has grown in complexity as the ledgers of Synapse and Evolve, and even some of the fintechs like Yotta, disagree on how much money is meant to be in certain accounts.

Evolve has been an important bank for the crypto ecosystem, serving as the card issuer for BlockFi’s credit cards and providing checking accounts and debit cards for FTX customers.

The recent examiner report in the FTX bankruptcy court also highlighted that FTX Philanthropy had approximately $10 million in accounts at Evolve Bank and Trust.  

Read more: TrueUSD bank FlowBank forced into bankruptcy

Alleged scammers who operated ‘pig-butchering’ scams also used Evolve Bank, with Protos reporting on a US Secret Service affidavit in support of seizure.

Today’s cease and desist order will require Evolve to submit more detailed plans to the regulators in order to show it is complying with applicable laws, including internal controls and money laundering controls. Furthermore, the bank is required to submit an updated due diligence program that explains how it ensures it has adequate information on its customers. 

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It was almost exactly one year ago when Silvergate Bank — a small bank located in La Jolla, California, known for working with various cryptocurrency companies, including FTX — let regulators, investors, and customers know that after a run on deposits over the course of several months, it would be throwing in the towel and shutting down.

The closure represented a drastic downturn in fortunes for Silvergate, which had become the preeminent bank for crypto companies and had grown significantly since its founding in 1988. Briefly, the bank’s shares valued the company at about $7 billion — today, pink sheet shares value Silvergate at $10 million.

But Silvergate was only the beginning of the regional banking crisis and it actually turned out to be the easiest and simplest to clean up. As is becoming more and more clear by the day, the regional banking crisis of 2023 didn’t end when the calendar year turned over.

Read more: Crypto banking giant Silvergate is no more following NYSE delisting

The real crisis begins

On the same day that Silvergate announced its voluntary closure, another California bank, Silicon Valley Bank, made some dire announcements about selling off distressed assets, taking out loans, and the emergency sale of stock. This, inevitably, led to a bank run, and days later, a collapse.

But this collapse came with threats and warnings from venture capitalists and tech companies that had kept far more than the insurable $250,000 in their accounts. They suggested that if these deposits weren’t essentially insured by the Federal Depositors Insurance Corporation (FDIC), there would be a knock-on effect for regional banks across the country.

While the FDIC did decide to insure all depositors’ accounts up to any number at Silicon Valley Bank, it didn’t stop the VCs and companies from fleeing the bank in droves — and, in fact, despite the FDIC agreeing to bailout all the depositors, many other regional banks began to instantly feel the pinch.

Only days after the rescue of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank in New York — another crypto-friendly bank — faced any bank’s worst nightmare, namely, a run on customer deposits in the wake of the turmoil. Similar to the promises made with depositors from Silicon Valley Bank, the FDIC promised that everyone would be made whole, regardless of the $250,000 limits on insurance.

California remained the epicenter for the crisis, with First Republic and PacWest Bancorp failing and being acquired, respectively, by mid-2023.

And then everything… just went on.

Read more: The show goes on: How Signature Bank’s bailout saved Broadway

Trauma without wisdom

So a year on from the crisis, the question remains: “What has been learned and how has the system changed?” The not-too-shocking answer is that, collectively, the American public, investors, and businesses have learned nothing and the system has refused to change.

A moment that could’ve been seized by banking critics and optimists alike was instead squandered. It was used as an opportunity to whinge about poor banking business practices and Federal Reserve rate hikes, instead of addressing depositor insurance policies and poorly thought-out hedging decisions.

A very real, very troubling crisis wasn’t truly averted — it was left to linger and fester, like a wrapped wound without antibiotics — and today we’re paying the price.

Only yesterday, New York Community Bancorp, one of the banks to purchase assets from the now-defunct Signature, was given a billion dollars to keep operations going. This private bailout comes after the stock plummeted 75% from recent highs.

In essence, what’s been learned yet again by the public, banks, and politicians is that fixing a leaky roof is unnecessary until a roof completely falls in on itself — that worthwhile practices and obvious changes don’t need to be instituted, even after times of crisis. It is unfortunate that regulators and politicians couldn’t see the forest for the trees and that even as another regional bank reached the teetering edge of failure the issues continue to go unaddressed.

Perhaps, when the pain is a little worse, when more depositors are hurt, and the FDIC can’t continue useless policies like $250,000 caps for insured accounts, action will be taken to stop wasteful and stupid banking and finance policies. But until then it’s business as usual.

See you at the next bank run.

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New York-based Quontic Bank proudly proclaims on its website that you can “Join Quontic In The Metaverse,” and calls its foray into virtual worlds “the first of its kind.” 

Unfortunately, during my visits to this Decentraland-based bank diorama, I was the only person there — unless you count the teller or poolside DJ. 

Accessing the poolside DJ requires you to first activate the ATM, something I found more difficult than anticipated due to failures in object collision detection.

Being the only person at a metaverse bank’s pool party with a DJ playing music was something I had never experienced before, and something I doubt I will experience again any time soon.

Speaking to the teller allows you to have a short conversation about some of the products that Quontic offers, including a checking account that offers rewards in bitcoin.

This appears to be referencing the ‘Bitcoin Rewards Checking’ product that allowed customers to earn Bitcoin from spending using a debit card. 

However, despite the teller suggesting to me that I check out this account, it’s no longer something Quontic offers. Visiting the page linked in the original press release for this product will inform you that “Registration has been disabled.” 

Aaron Wollner, the chief marketing officer for Quontic noted that, “unfortunately, due to a variety of external factors we made the difficult decision to discontinue our Bitcoin Rewards Checking program.” It isn’t clear what those external factors are. 

Looking around the metaverse bank outpost, you can see a few posters that serve as hyperlinks to various pages on Quontic’s non-metaverse website. 

Read more: Banks that bought up crypto banks struggle in 2024

Among these posters is one that advertises ‘Lite Documentation Loans’ for ‘Non-Traditional Borrowers.’ Quontic was the first community development financial institution (CDFI) that could make loans using alternative documentation, including for verification of income.

One report from Maine Wire has alleged that this type of loan has been used by illegal cannabis grow operations, with the paper allegedly identifying 69 such operations that received mortgages from Quontic. 

The bank has had other issues recently, with the Office of the Comptroller of Currency filing a cease and desist order in October 2022, five months after the blog post announcing the metaverse outpost. The order alleges “unsafe or unsound practices” and “violations of law, rule or regulation.” 

While Quontic has been focused on coming into compliance, it seems to have left its outpost in the metaverse languishing and promoting advertising products that no longer exist.

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Deltec Bank and Trust, the Bahamian bank that services the crypto industry, has been accused of knowingly aiding in the diversion of FTX customer deposits to Alameda Research and extending Alameda Research billions of dollars in credit to facilitate its issuance of popular stablecoin Tether. This is according to a motion filed in a class action lawsuit.

The allegations are based on messages and testimony from former Alameda Research chief exec Caroline Ellison who agreed to share these messages and testimony to settle the lawsuit against her. 

Deltec has served for years as one of the known banking partners for Tether, even publicly asserting the value of the stablecoin’s reserves. 

Alameda Research was a trading firm that misappropriated billions in customer assets from FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange with significant overlapping leadership.

The lawsuit specifically alleges that “Deltec…individually identified incoming FTX customer deposits and manually transferred those deposits into Alameda’s Deltec bank account daily and by way of texting one another” and “knew those incoming deposits belonged to FTX customers.”

It also claims that this behavior continued “after Deltec learned of Alameda’s looming insolvency and FTX’s inevitable collapse.” 

Furthermore, it alleges that Deltec failed to uphold its know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) regulations. These alleged breaches included sharing “regulatory compliance questions and customer information with FTX in violation of banking regulations and law — essentially, providing to FTX a playbook for evading regulatory scrutiny” — and exempting FTX and Alameda from regulatory mandated KYC and AML requirements wholesale.

It’s also claimed that the bank fabricated documents on behalf of FTX and Alameda to “sidestep those requirements in other ways.”

Additionally, the lawsuit claims that “Moonstone’s membership into the Federal Reserve, a critical entry point for FTX to the US banking system, was obtained by way of deceit and for FTX’s benefit.” Moonstone Bank was purchased by Deltec’s chairman, Jean Chalopin, and Alameda Research was the largest investor in the tiny bank. The lawsuit alleges that FTX had “their sights set on developing a bank owned and operated by FTX Group.”

Read more: The company that created Moonstone Bank is no more

Transfers between FTX and Alameda Research

FTX and Alameda Research’s chief point of contact at Deltec was apparently Gregory Pepin, who at that point was serving as the bank’s deputy CEO. In this role, he went above and beyond to service FTX, and Alameda, even noting to them that sometimes he went “outside the guideline to rush things lol.” Pepin was even willing to “populate invoices” to help manage wires from FTX customers. 

In order to manage incoming wires from FTX customers, Pepin would sometimes declare that it was “MOOONNNEEEYYY TTTIIIIMMMMEEEE” in the Alameda Research Telegram chat to signal that it was time to reconcile FTX customer deposits coming into Alameda bank accounts. This hands-on service differentiated Deltec from its competitors, with Pepin once joking, “What Silvergate don’t work at 10:38 pm and postpone their evening movie to review wire?”

At one point, he even observed, “lol don’t tell me Silvergate is slower than us under hurricane preparation and skeleton team lol.”

In his role, Pepin was at the beck and call of Alameda team members, who would regularly request that funds be transferred internally between FTX and Alameda bank accounts at Deltec. 

This behavior continued even once funds available started to come up short, with Pepin sometimes needing to encourage Alameda to deposit more cash to prevent problems. At one point, he said, “We need 200k cash lol as you are short 200k for the 400k…confirm when you guys push it as delchain is annoying me with the settlement lol.”

At times, this even affected the ability for FTX customers to withdraw, with Pepin messaging, “Hey guys for withdrawal we may need a little bnit [sic] of cahs [sic] for this one.” This was not a one-time occurrence, with repeated requests for additional funds to cover other withdrawals.

Even once Alameda’s insolvency became a matter of public debate, Pepin was still willing to publicly vouch for the firm, at one point stating, “There is people coming to me about alameda insolvency shit. I’m pushing back and say its BS. However seems to grow a bit those FUD. Are you ok if I come ou[t] more publicly (attacking back people on Twitter when I see) and divert [attention] with people ping me?”

Tether scheme

The lawsuit additionally alleges that Deltec held a central role in enabling Alameda to issue billions of dollars worth of Tether. At its most basic Deltec was often responsible for making the transfers between the accounts of Bitfinex, Tether, and Alameda in order to facilitate the issuance and redemption of USDT. 

The lawsuit confirms that Alameda minted “more than $40 billion USDT,” confirming earlier Protos reporting about the scale of Tether issuance.

Alameda traders recognized they were issuing a significant quantity of USDT, with one communicating in the group chat that “You must feel like a dealer sometimes with how eager we are for the tethers I bet,” to which Tether chief financial officer Giancarlo Devasini responded, “I just wish you didn’t wait until you have no more before filing [sic] up again.”

The lawsuit alleges that Alameda was regularly issuing new USDT once it had successfully sold them for a premium, likely through its network of trading desks, including Genesis Block. 

Eventually, Deltec facilitated the more rapid issuance of USDT by allegedly extending a de facto revolving line of credit to Alameda. Pepin allegedly effectively allowed Alameda several days to pay for transfers it made to Tether, a feature Alameda immediately took advantage of, eventually breaking $2 billion borrowed. This arrangement was allegedly undocumented with Pepin asking Alameda to keep the arrangement confidential. 

A completely hypothetical series of transactions could look something like this:

• Deltec transfers $1 billion to Tether from Alameda’s line of credit
• Tether transfers 1 billion USDT to Alameda.
• Alameda sells USDT through exchanges like Bitfinex and over-the-counter trading desks like Genesis Block
• Alameda transfers proceeds from sales to Deltec, paying back the credit that was extended to them

This pseudo-line of credit helped Alameda Research become the largest issuer of USDT.

Read more: Deltec, SBF-linked billionaire Joe Lewis set for guilty plea to insider trading

June seizure

The lawsuit details how, when “Alameda redeemed USDT or withdrew from Bitfinex, the proceeds would first flow to Deltec Bank’s account at Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation (MUFG)…from which US authorities seized funds belonging to Deltec Bank, in June 2023.” 

A June affidavit in support of the seizure of Deltec Bank funds held at MUFG related to an investigation into wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering alleges that Deltec “misrepresented the purpose and use of the SUBJECT ACCOUNT.”

The account was meant to be a custodial account, however allegedly “Deltec has allowed the account to be used by other third parties, in activity that would not reasonably be anticipated in a custody account and that has allowed individuals to avoid the scrutiny and vetting that international transactions might otherwise receive.”

This affidavit does not explicitly mention FTX, Alameda Research, Bitfinex, or Tether, but does mention cryptocurrency investment scams. 

Broadly, this lawsuit alleges that Deltec Bank and Trust engaged in extraordinary behavior to aid and abet the fraudulent behavior of FTX and Alameda Research by facilitating transfers and extending credit.

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Swan Bitcoin is warning users to not withdraw directly to Wasabi or Samourai wallets, two of the most popular bitcoin mixing services. For at least the third time, Swan customers are having problems with banking access.

Specifically, Swan Bitcoin co-founder Yan Pritzker recently admitted that “some of the banks and qualified custodians that Swan works with have been freezing or terminating accounts.” An email from Swan claims that these suspensions affect customers who deposit or withdraw bitcoin with a bitcoin mixing service.

Pritzker’s fellow co-founder and CEO Cory Klippsten says Swan is negotiating with banks and considering legal actions.

Swan Bitcoin has more problems with banks

Critics were quick to publicize the announcement. Many claimed Swan was kowtowing to banks. A customer said, “Swan financially only supports chain surveillance and policies in direct conflict with Bitcoin.’

Samourai Wallet had particularly sharp words. “It’s still a proposal you lame f*cking p*ssies,” the firm posted on X. “Instead of mounting a defense you preemptively comply? Absolute losers.”

Paul Sztorc bemoaned Swan’s announcement, saying Bitcoin’s ability to enable permissionless transactions — to any entity, including anonymizers — is Bitcoin’s primary value proposition. Many chuckled, claiming that Swan was walking an inexorable path toward reinventing PayPal.

Pritzker added more context to the Swan’s latest round of banking troubles. He clarified that Swan doesn’t have an explicit policy forbidding the use of mixing services. To the contrary, the company published a guide to using them.

However, a screenshot of Swan Bitcoin’s update on anonymizing wallets says otherwise. In boldface, it reminds customers that they shouldn’t deposit and withdraw directly with anonymizers, implying that adding a few hops might obfuscate their intentions to banking partners.

It’s unclear how effective or lasting this tactic would be for customers. Even if banks and payment processors targeted customers with direct transactions with anonymizers in their latest round of suspensions, tracing activities a few additional hops might be a trivial addition during their next round of suspensions.

Yan Pritzker continues anti-FinCEN rant

Pritzker says banks and qualified custodians have been terminating services to various companies — not just Swan — that interact with crypto mixing services. He sympathizes with customers, admitting that these financial institutions are often the only way to have a viable on-ramp and off-ramp for bitcoin activities.

Indeed, many financial institutions have demonstrated reluctance to support customers to directly send funds to mixers, tumblers, coinjoin pools, or any other type of identity-obscuring service. Pritzker blamed the US political climate and stringent regulations for financial businesses that don’t implement strict know your customer (KYC), anti-money laundering (AML), and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) procedures.

Pritzker ranted, saying politicians vastly overstate how much bitcoin is used to fund criminal activities like terrorism. He promised to fight for privacy rights in courts and express political dissent to entities like the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. He recommended an alternative to Wasabi and Samourai, Bisq.

Pritzker blamed surveillance overreach of the Patriot Act and its predecessor, the Bank Secrecy Act, which require banks to collect and report on suspicious activities. He blames banks’ filing of frivolous suspicious activity reports (SARs) that make it easy for the government to surveil innocent people’s financial lives.

Read more: Bitcoin’s CoinJoin services threatened by new FinCEN rules

Banking problems persist at Swan Bitcoin

In the end, the news is simply another banking problem at Swan Bitcoin. For whatever reason, the company seems to have a fiat on-/off-ramp crisis every few months. Swan’s first custodian of record went bankrupt. The acquirer of Swan’s second custodian of record bailed on that acquisition after it lost millions of dollars worth of assets, and its CEO resigned.

It claims that custodying bitcoin through third parties is so problematic that it is building its own custodial solution alongside BitGo. It will debut that self-branded service sometime in 2024.

Read more: Prime Trust halts withdrawals and deposits as acquisition fails

In summary, banks and qualified custodians have suspended services to some customers of Swan Bitcoin. The freezes and account terminations have targeted Swan customers who interacted with coin mixing services like Samourai and Wasabi.

Swan is now recommending that customers who want to use these services add hops to their transaction trail, but the effectiveness of this strategy seems temporary.

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Edit 17:55 UTC, Nov 15: Corrected headline to clarify that only some Swan customers have been affected.

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While Farmington State Bank — which was doing business as Moonstone — sold off its assets to the Bank of Eastern Oregon and wound down in August of this year, the company that had a controlling interest in the small Washington state-based bank, FBH, also seems to be calling it quits.

FBH was founded in 2020 by Jean Chalopin — the creator of Inspector Gadget and CEO and chairman of Deltec Bank and Trust in The Bahamas — seemingly for the sole purpose of purchasing Farmington State Bank.

The mission statement and name of the bank were changed shortly after purchase to ‘Moonstone’ in order to represent its customer demographic shift: cryptocurrency companies (to the moon) and marijuana companies (stoned).

End of Moonstone, end of FBH

Unfortunately for Chalopin, one of the investors he sought out to buy equity in Moonstone was Sam Bankman-Fried, who poured $11.5 million into the bank for 9.9% ownership. The investment valued the third-smallest bank in America at $115 million and opened it up to increased scrutiny from the public, the media, and regulators when FTX and Alameda Research collapsed.

Read more: Exclusive: The Fed responds to the Moonstone Bank mystery

FBH failed to file an annual report in the state of Washington, meaning that the business will be struck off in December of this year, but with the end of Moonstone and a close eye being kept on Chalopin and crypto companies in general by US bank regulators, there appears to be little reason for FBH to submit data and retain its existence in Washington.

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Binance kept Binance US customers’ deposits in Axos Financial, the same bank used by convicted fraudster Reggie Fowler of Crypto Capital Corp, now-bankrupt Prime Trust, and InfoWars’ Alex Jones. However, despite a dubious client list, Axos hasn’t considered its exposure to the crypto industry as a relevant “risk factor” in its quarterly Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) 10-K filings.

But there are more red flags waving over Axos Financial like the fact that Prime Trust and Binance US’ parent company BAM Trading were Axos customers at the same time. But not only that:

• Prime Trust employed Ponzi-like business practices of using other customers’ assets to fulfill withdrawal requests to hide losses.
• Prime Trust filed for bankruptcy and its CEO admitted to losing $8 million in the Terra LUNA pyramid scheme.
• The SEC is suing Binance US’ founder for a litany of federal law violations.
• The SEC is also suing Terra founder Do Kwon and recently requested that he be extradited to the US.

More specifically, Binance US and BAM Trading held over 10 accounts at Axos with some $377 million worth of customer funds as of May this year. It still held open accounts according to a more recent disclosure.

That Axos voluntarily serves Binance as a customer is odd, particularly as the SEC is suing the parent companies of Binance US and Binance.com, as well as its founder, Changpeng Zhao. After the SEC sued Binance, US customers slowly withdrew funds and stopped using Binance US. Once popular, the exchange has embarrassingly downranked to 63rd among global exchanges.

Consider another potential cause for concern. Axos permits crypto companies to avoid the Federal Reserve’s bank wire system with its own intrabank funds transfer system called AxPay. 

AxPay permits customers to transfer money 24/7 between accounts at Axos Financial. The system is similar to Signature Bank’s SigNET and Silvergate’s SEN. Worryingly, both Signature and Silvergate banks collapsed into liquidation.

Far from disclosing crypto as a risk factor in its quarterly filings, Axos actually bragged about its lack of crypto dealings, claiming that its lack of crypto exposure ranked among its “franchise differentiators.”

Despite these claims, Axos began accepting Binance US-related deposits in January 2023.

Read more: Prime Trust used $82M in customer funds to buy Terra and Ether

Axos’ dizzying array of red flags

Curious events at Axos continue. For example, Axos Bank’s CEO recently starting selling his own shares in the company. He, of course, claimed that he merely needed to make an unremarkable interest payment on a margin loan.

Rumors are also swirling. An attorney for Axos, James Ethan McComb, might be under investigation by the California State Bar for perjury. Protos has, however, been unable to verify this particular rumor due to the confidentiality treatment of state bar proceedings.

Axos’ questionable business decisions included acquiring the penny stock trading company COR Clearing. Since then, COR Clearing has had to settle with authorities over allegations of violating anti-money laundering regulations.

Axos held assets for Donald Trump, who committed fraud in New York. A federal judge revoked all of his business licenses in the state.

The bank also gave a significant margin loan to B. Riley Financial’s Brandon Riley, who put up 60% of his shares in B. Riley Financial as collateral.

Axos also worked with Infowars’ Alex Jones until September 28, 2023. Axos cited unauthorized transactions as a reason to terminate the relationship but an attorney for Jones’ organization said that “they had no answers” to queries regarding why the accounts were suddenly closed.

In short, Axos Bank is the latest crypto-friendly bank to take a chance on questionable individuals and organizations.

A concerning paper trail indicates that Axos Bank has maintained customer relationships with questionable business operators, including Alex Jones, Prime Trust’s Scott Purcell, Binance’s CZ, and others. Worse, the bank’s CEO has been selling shares in the company.

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According to a customer email, Chase Bank is set to stop crypto-related debit card payments and bank transfers for UK clients next month.

As reported by CoinDesk, Chase will become the latest in a long line of UK banks to impose such measures as financial institutions in the country seek an effective way to tackle the rising rates of crypto-related fraud. The new measures will reportedly come into effect on October 16. 

In the email, Chase says, “If we think you’re making a payment related to crypto assets, we’ll decline it.” It went on to tell customers that they’re welcome to take their business elsewhere.

A spokesperson for Chase said, “We’ve seen an increase in the number of crypto scams targeting UK consumers, so we have taken the decision to prevent the purchase of crypto assets on a Chase debit card or by transferring money to a crypto site from a Chase account,” (via CoinDesk).

Despite the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) seeking to open a dialogue between banks and crypto firms (the regulator has specifically sought to address the issue of debanking in a recent report) finding a crypto-friendly bank in the UK is becoming progressively more difficult.

Read more: Nomo Bank latest in UK to block Binance payments

Indeed, the likes of Nationwide, HSBC, Santander, Barclays, and Natwest all blocked card payments to Binance following regulatory uncertainty towards the exchange.

In addition, Santander limited payments to crypto exchanges at £1,000 per transaction and £3,000 for every 30 days while online bank Starling banned all transactions towards crypto exchanges.

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