In the latest episode of the podcast 'Las Voces de Satoshi', Javier Pastor, Head of OTC at Bit2Me, was talking about the so-called Choke Points. What exactly are they? Is a new one taking place right now?
Contextualizing: Choke Point 1.0
Pastor explained in his Linkedin article 'What is happening in the US with the cryptoasset sector?', that the Choke Point 1.0 operation was initiated during the Obama and CFPB mandate (promoted mainly by Elizabeth Warren, manifestly against the crypto industry) in 2013, acting in a paralyzing way against industries such as the arms or online gaming industries, even though they acted legally.
The modus operandi was to exert pressure on the banking sector to prevent these industries from receiving transfers or purchases. And this was carried out as a shadow action, without being voted on in parliament.
“The industry has always put obstacles in the way of exchanges receiving their transfers,” according to Pastor. In 2020, it seemed that politicians were going to ease up on the crypto industry with organizations like the OCC involved, but they backed off. And the brakes were put on banks being able to hold cryptocurrencies.
Choke Point 2.0
During his appearance on 'Las Voces de Satoshi', Javier Pastor continued to explain why this operation is being carried out again: “Cryptocurrencies allow you to get out of a financial system established by politicians who really represent the largest financial institutions.”
That is to say, the people who should represent the freedom of citizens position themselves in favor of economic interests, putting obstacles in the way of any system other than the one they want to impose, such as cryptocurrencies.
To do this, they carry out actions without making much noise with the aim of “making it difficult for all that fiat money to be transferred to cryptocurrencies.”
Returning to your article, you relate events that demonstrate this operation. Among them, in 2022 P Morgan closed the bank account of the founder of the DeFi platform, Uniswap, Hayden Adams. Commissioner Brian Quintez said on Twitter that both the FED and the OCC were pressuring banks to “de-bank” “risky” businesses.
On the other hand, the collapse of FTX, which was on the verge of dragging down Silvergate bank, which suffered a bank run of $8.100 billion.
Later, on January 3, 2023, the FED, FDIC, and OCC announced that banks should not hold cryptocurrencies. The next day, Signature Bank and Silvergate received a downgrade in their rating as banking entities.
Finally, Javier Pastor stated: “If you control food, you control the country; if you control energy, you control continents; but if you control money, you control the world.”
