| First, it was US regulators who were coming for crypto. Now, some digital-asset adherents are claiming that another powerful contingent has it in for them: The banks that won't bank them. The shutdowns of Silvergate and Signature Bank — two of the country's most prominent crypto-friendly financiers — are fresh reminders of the hazard that too much exposure to the ups and downs of digital assets can pose. They also provide more impetus for already-wary lenders across America to further restrict their relationships with crypto companies, concerned about the possible damage to their balance sheets if said firms were to collapse FTX-style. As my colleagues Yueqi Yang, Paige Smith and Katanga Johnson reported on Thursday, financial firms are often imposing lengthy application procedures on crypto businesses, turning away smaller companies, and in some cases, refusing to work with the sector completely. With the trend only worsening as time goes on, some in the digital-asset industry have called it "Operation Chokepoint 2.0," named after a 2013 campaign by federal regulators to lock out high-risk businesses such as firearms dealers and sellers of drug paraphernalia from the banking system. It's a hint that, at least in crypto minds, there may be a coordinated effort afoot to shut the door on digital assets altogether. This isn't a problem unique to the US. In the UK, crypto lobbyists complained to financial watchdogs this month that digital-asset firms are being kept out of the system by banks that place daily limits on how much money customers can send to crypto exchanges each month. It's interesting, though, that the sector's proposed solution to a banking crackdown on crypto — something that might have been expected given the young sector's core mission is to debank the world's population — is not to embrace its outsider status but to instead turn to lawmakers. After all, it was politicians who passed those tough rules on financial risk management in the first place. In a report on the topic on Tuesday, Cooper & Kirk, a Washington-based law firm, called on US Congress to "perform its oversight role" and challenge federal banking regulators on what it views as an unlawful blanket ban on crypto activities. It accused watchdogs of exceeding their statutory authority, and petitioned Congress to require regulators to explain themselves. Unfortunately for blockchain businesses (and Cooper & Kirk), it seems unlikely that Congress would be willing to hear them out. Regulators globally have repeatedly warned of the risks that crypto could present if allowed to embed into the traditional financial system, and to a certain extent, US authorities are working under the same guidelines established to avoid another 2008. Charges against former FTX executives alleging that their donations to US politicians violated campaign finance laws — allegations that Bankman-Fried has denied — won't help, either. Crypto's own track record, stained most recently by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's lawsuit against Binance which accused the trading platform of money-laundering failures among other issues, isn't going to convince them it's not the high-risk industry it looks to be on the surface. | 
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