EP06 | Beyond The Brink | Operation Choke Point | 4/15/23

The VEDA Broadcast Network discusses Operation Choke Point and its impact on the crypto industry. Operation Choke Point was a program launched by the Obama administration in 2013 to combat fraudulent businesses. It targeted high-risk industries such as firearm dealers and payday loans. While the program officially ended in 2017, concerns have been raised about a potential Operation Choke Point 2.0. Recent bank collapses have sparked speculation about the nature of these collapses and their connection to cryptocurrency depositors. The show explores the possible implications and the efforts of the US government to crack down on the crypto industry. It also highlights the role of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and key players involved in these operations. You're listening to the VEDA Broadcast Network, discussions that matter. Thank you for listening. The shows on the VEDA Broadcast Network are those of the host, guest, and callers only and do not necessarily reflect those of the staff, management, or advertisers of VEDA Media or the VEDA Broadcast Network. Welcome to Beyond the Brink. Our show focuses on global events that are pushing people to their limits and to the brink of change. Hi, my name's Melissa. And my name's Christy. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, wherever you are. Exactly. If you missed our previous episodes, you can find them at VEDABroadcastNetwork.com, on YouTube or VEDA Broadcast Network, and Rumble on Twitter. You can find us at VEDABroadcast. So, as we said, welcome. Today's episode, we are going to delve into the topic of unprecedented power and influence. Specifically, we're going to be addressing Operation Choke Point, which was a program launched by the Obama administration and the DOJ in 2013, and it was to combat fraudulent businesses. That program targeted high-risk industries such as firearm dealers, payday loans, but however, they said that the program ended in 2017 after the FDIC settled several lawsuits. Well, recently, with the collapse of the Silver Bank or the Silvergate Signature and Silicon Valley Bank, it has raised concerns about the nature of their collapses. I mean, was this an organic collapse or is there something bigger going on? So, we must ask ourselves, could their relationship with cryptocurrency depositors have triggered another Operation Choke Point, like Operation Choke Point 2.0? So, I like to think, as mature and critical thinkers, we must consider the potential implications of such a scenario, and it's very probable, in my opinion. Let's dig in. But first, let's hear a word from one of our affiliate partners. Beyond the Brink has partnered with Swan Bitcoin. We chose Swan Bitcoin because it's easy and inexpensive, and it's the best form of financial protection if you're hit with a disaster. It's perfect for both new and experienced Bitcoiners. And if you set up a Bitcoin savings plan, you'll never miss out on the dips. Get a free book, Inventing Bitcoin, the Technology Behind the First Truly Scarce and Decentralized Money, and get $10 off of Bitcoin when you use our affiliate link, VidaBroadcastNetwork.com forward slash beyond. That's VidaBroadcastNetwork.com forward slash beyond. I almost blew it with that. So many different websites. I tell you. You know what, Melissa? It never ceases to amaze me how much corruption we can find. It seems like it's never ending. It really is. The more I dig into things, the more my eyes are open and I'm just like, are you kidding me right now? It's so crazy. Yeah, it's incredible. Well, today we're going to discuss the matter of great significance in the financial world, and we're talking about that Operation Chokepoint 2.0 and how it's affecting the crypto industry. As we alluded in the introduction, 2013, the Obama administration, DOJ, launched what's now called the Operation Chokepoint 1.0 to combat fraudulent businesses, and it was criticized for unfairly targeting legitimate businesses as high-risk businesses, high-risk industries. Fast forward to 2023, and we now have Operation Chokepoint 2.0, and the U.S. government is using the banking sector to conduct a widespread crackdown against the crypto industry, and it's not limited to crypto alone. It's aimed at virtually every financial regulator, and the administration's efforts are clearly expressed in memos, their regulatory guidance, and their blog posts. So they're basically, they're bullying for sure. And Operation 2.0 was brought forward by an article published by, I don't know if people are familiar with Nick Carter, but in February, he raised awareness that the Biden administration's plan to launch a sophisticated widespread crackdown against the crypto industry. Him and Liz, they're fighting against the crypto industry. And then a month later, the U.S. financial system was thrust into chaos after a series of historic bank failures. Most notably was the Silicon Valley Bank, but failures actually began a couple of days earlier after crypto-friendly Silvergate was targeted by the government. By the end of the following weekend, the last remaining crypto-friendly bank signature was shut down under circumstances that are still unclear, and for some reason, largely unreported. So it's just amazing how quickly they can rub pull these banks in the destruction that they cause by doing so. And as we're going to discuss today, why were those banks singled out? Yeah, why were they targeted? So we're going to get to that in just a moment. Should we tee up our little teaser video? Oh, yeah, that'd be great. Okay, let me go over and pull that up, and here we go. And make sure we can see this okay. This is Representative Davison questioning Chairman Powell. Yes, this is a doozy. Well, it's an honor to be able to talk with you today and appreciate the work you and the monetary policy-focused portion of the Fed does. We're rooting for maybe a more consistent input from our bank regulators. So for the regulatory side, I've spoken with multiple banks. Just to interject that he says more of a consistent, you know, they don't want fluff at these meetings. Exactly. So we'll continue. Bankers who tell me that they've never seen a higher degree of regulatory burden steering, guidance, shaping activities in the market from regulators. I don't think that's just narrowly focused on the Fed, but I'd ask you to look into it. I had a lot of people that feel like there's not Operation Chokepoint 2.0 going on, and it's particularly focused on debanking people that are disfavored by, you know, the current executive branch primarily, just like the previous Operation Chokepoint was. And so to the extent that you yield any influence over the regulatory component of the Federal Reserve, I think that would be meaningful and important because, you know, our monetary system, part of the strength of the U.S. dollar is, of course, a stable store of value. Currencies around the world are wrestling with that and inflation, and you guys are working to tackle it. But the other part is it's an efficient means of an exchange, and when people really feel like some third party is going to steer or shape their money, they don't trust it. I mean, the unbanked and the underbanked fundamentally, that lack of trust is part of why they don't use our banking system today. In fact, that's part of the appeal of the digital asset space is the permissionless nature of it. There is so much there. Basically, Mr. Powell, would you go ahead and look into this, wink, wink, because we know you're not because you're behind this. Yes, but we're calling you out on it here in a very public forum. And the reason why the unbanked doesn't want to use our system because they don't trust it. Yes, they don't trust it. They don't. A lot of people are unbanked by choice, and they like to target, they like to say, you know, there's so many unbanked and all that. They want you to bank. They want you to control. Right. So they kind of twist it around. But a lot of people don't trust the banking industry at all. Within our country, especially outside of the country. A hundred percent. Yes. I don't blame them. We'll continue. It seems that a lot of people in the financial services space that have grown up in it, that are leading it today, feel threatened by the prospect of change. Oh, boy, we're taking control away from you. That is a big statement right there. And some truth. Yes. And if they've maybe reluctantly concluded that you can't ban crypto, they at least want to keep it account-based so that some third party can actually control the assets, which is a polite way of saying we don't actually trust our citizens to control their money or their assets. We'll let somebody else do it for them because we can control those third parties. Well, you know what? The citizens don't trust the banks. So the mistrust goes both ways. Yep. And, in fact, that's what the regulators do, isn't it? Is in what? I mean, if you don't comply with the regulatory regime, you don't get to operate a financial services business, right? That's right. And so at the end of the day, you know, I think a lot of people were concerned by your remarks yesterday. I know I was, by saying that permissionless digital assets pose a systemic risk to the financial system. In other words, it poses a financial or a systemic risk to those who are already in power and they feel it. And this is something that is frightening them quite a bit because it's something they have never encountered before. Yes. Yep. Well, I think what we said in our guidance, I think if you by the way, I think if you read through the digital guidance. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just like Janet yelling. It's pretty careful to say that we don't want regulation to oppose innovation and thus entrench incumbents and things like that. It's pretty balanced, the language. And I think it essentially goes to the question of protecting the safety and soundness of institutions. And there is one, I think what we say about, I'll paraphrase it, what we say about permissionless block changes is that they have been vehicles for fraud. Yeah, 0.24%. So if you follow the. Oh, mic drop. On fraud, it's a fraction of what it is with the U.S. dollar. Thank you, Chairman. Chairman Powell. So there was just so much said there. The fraud narrative just doesn't work. And Representative Davidson was prepared for it. He knew it was coming. So good for him. I'm so glad that you found that clip. And, you know, so many, so much of the public doesn't, they don't listen to these types of exchanges. And the media definitely doesn't report on it whatsoever. And so because the media has the narrative, they can push whatever narrative they want. A lot of folks aren't familiar with crypto. They just go, you know, they like, oh, well, crypto is all about fraud. And here's a senator that, you know, he is he's throwing out some truth bombs there. Right. In relation to the dollar, you know, 2.4% fraud in crypto. Come on now. Yeah. It's an overplayed narrative. And it's just it's not going to cut it anymore. So, you know, let's start from the very beginning of what Operation Chokepoint is. And it's always been controversial in that it was never voted on by U.S. politicians. So, in essence, it's a rogue operation and it was started in the Obama administration's DOJ. But it really had its seeds of origins, if you will, back in the previous administration, the Bush administration in 2007, with the with the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Board. And Elizabeth Warren was the one that was spearheading that operation. Yeah, didn't they? Don't they call it Elizabeth Warren's baby? Oh, absolutely. Her baby, the CFPB. Oh, yes. And and it should have never. It's actually. What would you call it? An office or a regulatory regime that was never codified in by law. It was just put in and it was never really countered. I know Donald Trump tried to counter it and kill it, but it had set precedence and had already started operating. And for some reason, the Supreme Court allowed it to exist. You know, when I was looking into this, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, some things that stuck out to me is, like you said, you know, it wasn't voted in and it wasn't passed by by Congress. It was it's kind of like a de facto or whatever governmental agency that had so much control. Right. Over over what happens in our financial sectors. And the fact that I was looking into the funding, a funding of it. And I mean, the way that they're funded is is they buy the by the fees that they collect by taking these guys down. Right. And so they don't even have to get the funded funding doesn't even have to come straight from Congress. So it's kind of like takes them takes them out of the loop. And so you have this unfettered power by people. And so it's just it's it's it's sickening. And the other thing I was going to say is, you know, when you say this goes back all the way to 2007 and you can see how they've been targeting the crypto industry. And I think you and I have discussed before on the fact that, you know, crypto, this has been a long time coming. We think this stuff is all new right now, but it's been it's been going on for a long time. So to me, they've got this agency they formed and they're using as a weapon because they could see the future of what was going to happen. And so, you know, they're they're using it to try to protect their current financial system that they have set up. Right. Oh, I think it was very well played and they weaved it in the law under the Dodd-Frank Act. So I believe that that's why it makes it very difficult for it to be removed, because the Dodd-Frank Act is is basically how banks are running right now. Just a little side note. Wasn't it Silvergate, a signature bank, that Barney Frank was one of the directors and his own legislation came back to bite them? You know, I do want to say this is one thing of my conspiratorial mind goes right. Like where I think like FTX was a setup, you know, because it's the problem reaction solution over and over again. And so the fact that Barney Frank was involved in this, you know, in these ways, I'm like, you know, it was some of this stuff like an intentional setup. And they make an example, a controlled example of these banks so that any other type of startup bank that or any other bank that wants to participate in crypto, they're they're prevented from doing so. Right. So if you got a guy on the inside, right. Yeah. So, you know, I don't know. I just I it's clear as day to me that that's the kind of crap that they play with this stuff, though. Well, going, you know, Elizabeth Warren is extremely anti crypto. She likes ultimate control and crypto does not favor ultimate control. Decentralized platforms are not about control bases. We do have many centralized cryptocurrencies out there and, you know, their securities and and they're only going to become more centralized with the regulations. But the decentralized ones are the ones that that cause a lot of heartburn for people like Elizabeth Warren and her elk. Yes. Michael Barr, he only plays a role in this and that he was the architect of the Dodd Frank Dodd Frank Act. And he's also extremely anti crypto. And it was interesting that the Dodd Frank Act created a new position at the Federal Reserve. And now, which is a supervisory position, I should add, which he now coincidentally holds. Yeah. You know, and again, it's it's the guys on the inside setting up the setting up all this because you can control all the players for a movie that you're playing for the public. Right. Yes, absolutely. Isn't Michael Barr the the what is it, the the commodities trade commission? Wasn't he involved with that also? Yeah. Like the head of that. So. But he's sitting on the Federal Reserve or within the Federal Reserve system as a supervisor. Hmm. So there's a lot of those players. Yes, there is. Yeah. I want to say one thing about Elizabeth Warren. If anybody if anybody. So we a lot of many of us are professionals. We you know, we work in different types of businesses and whatever. And we come across professionals every day. And, you know, just even the plumber talks more intelligently sometimes than Elizabeth Warren. And so, you know, she's the face of this Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And when she talks about cryptocurrency, she sounds so ignorant. So I hate to use the term boomerish, but man, it's like she flies a fox. She's an attorney. She knows. I mean, do people really buy this from her? Do people? Yes. Sadly, they do, Melissa. It crushes my spirit. It crushes me to think that people take her seriously. We've talked about complacency and why we're here. You know, you have to ask the question for somebody who's been a career educator, maybe have never made more than $240,000, $250,000 in a year or ever. Why she is a multimillionaire now as a sitting senator. A career liar. Yes. And so obviously they're using their status and influence to enrich themselves. And it seems to be why there's career politicians. But that's not the gist of what today's discussion is. It just reeks of corruption and the actual problems that we're having today. So, you know, Operation Chokepoint, as you well know, was considered why it was the reason crypto companies had a difficult time getting access to banking services. And that's what drove them to offshore alternatives. And that's where, like, Stablecoin Tether was started. It was on an offshore location because it's just we couldn't get the banking operations going here. So Stablecoin was created so that there was a means of exchanging cryptocurrency into something that was more stable and pegged to a, let's say, stable currency like the United States dollar. OK. OK. I mean, that makes sense. Right. And that happened in the first wave of growth happened around 2010 or so. And that's when Tether came about. Now, that was much earlier in my before my journey into the crypto space because I was one of those naysayers at that time. It's like that funny money stuff. But all of this was happening because those who were able to understood what Bitcoin and what use case cryptocurrencies meant, that they needed to have a way to be able to get into the currency and get out of the currency. And by stabilizing that transaction, that exchange makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. So Operation Chokepoint was ended by ironically by President Trump in 2017. But, you know, they never dismantled it. They just continued to operate it in a shadow government format, like a lot of things that we've learned about over the last few years. They were pressured to banks were also pressured to stop working with oil companies in 2017 and firearm companies in 2018. And this is under the Trump administration. Yeah, people were still operating. Yeah, I really I was surprised. But one thing I will say is, I think it shows how much control that that office had, even with a new president. You know, I remember the controversy initially with even the CFTC. Right. Trump and battling and who he was going to put and put Mick Mulvaney in and, you know, all of these things. But a lot of these operations were were ongoing. No, he didn't stop it. But I wonder, could he have stopped it actually? Or was it allowed to operate to observe what was happening? You know, that's my hopeful sign. But we'll not. I don't know. So, ironically, some politicians were still pushing for more regulation in 2019. If you recall, we were having a slowing economy and it wasn't until. Well, there was some I think Trump eloquently used the media to send a message because he wasn't able to get the things that he wanted done on the regulatory side. So he brought it to the people. And by 2020, even with the the advent of the pandemic, banking conditions eventually improved. And it was the office of the Comptroller of Currency allowed federally chartered banks and thrift to provide custody services for crypto assets. And it was a key catalyst for the bull market. If you recall, some people that were just getting reintroduced to Bitcoin or started, you know, I was one of those people in the 2019 early 2020 camp that looked at this again and says, you know, it's viable. It is a true tremendous store of value and started a tremendous journey down the rabbit hole of finding out why that was. So the bull market took off and that brought in a lot of new money and it brought in institutional players. And at the time, the OCC chair was Brian Brooks. Ironically, he was from Coinbase. He was Coinbase's former CEO. So you have to wonder, you know, how all of this works. Brian Brooks is a very interesting character. I've seen him woven in the crypto space and he's a very interesting person. I'd love to do a deep dive on him someday. Yeah, he definitely meant and then, you know, they the OCC in 2020 required banks to provide the access to the banking services for all customers. But then when he left in 2021, just a few days later, the OCC put a pause on the fair access rule that that he allowed. So and that and Michael Sue is that, you know, becomes the acting CEO director. And he is the opposite. He believes that the crypto industry should be cut off from the financial system because of its risk. And this is one thing I want to say. It's like you see all these other countries that are so far along in their regulation when it comes to the cryptocurrency space. And I mean, they're thriving. They're right here. And here we are with this back, back, back and forth, back and forth. And just how, you know, from from one year to the next, you can have such such huge extremes. And what does that do? That creates uncertainty. And so it prevents any anybody that could contribute to the space from fully contributing. And when they do, what do they do? They bite the head off. So it's interesting. You said having some stability and understanding of what the administration's goals are. That was the complaint during the entire Obama administration is that they did not have regulatory clarity as to why how the the banking regular banking sector was going to operate. So we had very slow, stagnant growth. It did not make sense in many ways because there were, as we've learned, choke points put into the system to slow the growth for some reason. And and when the new administration came in, more of a free market administration, those choke points were removed and industry flourished. So you have to wonder, you know, why do we not want to grow as a country? Why is there some of our elected leaders not want us to have prosperity? Well, part part of the part of the reason is, I mean, and this is a whole nother show, but the threat to the US dollar and the hegemony that we we have around the world, right? You let you let crypto and decentralized networks flourish and gain momentum. You're cutting off your own foot and hand and whatever. And so because they're not ready, they weren't ready for it. They had to slow it down. But it's actually silly because they've just empowered all these other countries. Yes. And they're hurting us in the US. And it's like, gosh, guys, this is it's the United States is the crown jewel for a takedown. Yep. Yep. Yep. And we just said it. So it's hard to tell exactly when the emergence of choke point two point zero started. But it became more clear in twenty twenty two early part of last year. And it's when JPMorgan Chase had closed the account of a Uniswap founder, Hayden Adams. And there was a reply that that he had put out. Hayden put out a tweet. And the former CFTC commissioner, Brian Contez, said the Fed and the OCC had been instructed to pressure banks to unbank risky entities. Now, getting back to this risky entity, I wanted to say earlier is that we have so many risky investments that are available on our own stock exchange and mercantile exchange. What are commodities? I mean, you can trade in pork bellies and they're extremely volatile and they can take out a trade puts and stops options trading. So how is this any more of a systemic risk to our financial system in that other than it being a threat of the power structure of taking away their control? Because everything else that I just managed is under the control of the power structure. Well, and one thing that just popped in my head and I don't know, but I think about, you know, as far as being risky. How about not letting people know when they're trading that they're trading against bots and they have no channel of exactly a bot. Right. Oh, my. You want to talk about getting rug pulled. Right. That's huge. And all these people that are on, you know, all over YouTube and whatever. Let me show you how to trade and make money and blah, blah, blah. How about you go after those guys? No. Why? Because you want that money coming into the system so your damn bot can take it. Yeah. That's what. And a lot of these, not to pick on the network marketing industry, but there are a lot of especially those who are geared towards the financial services side are brought with the bots. It's you just touched off on something like the A.I. side of things. It's just it's incredible. So who gave the instructions for this crackdown? Well, according to Nick Carter, it was the Biden administration. More specifically, it was the Democratic Party. Wow. And it makes sense because anti-crypto politicians are generally Democrats and those who are pro-crypto politicians are generally Republican. But it's not to be a partisan statement by any way, because both sides really suck. Yeah, they do. OK. Well, here's the deal. They pretend that they're a Democrat or Republican so that they can have a battle with each other that they already know the outcome. So it's all a lie. They're a bunch of liars anyway. So. And it's just like the clip we started at the beginning of the show. You can you can see, you know, the the the partisan stances that are taken just by watching some of these congressional hearings. We gave you one that just was pointed towards a regulator. But watch the entire hearings and you'll see, you know, the this ebb and flow between the two sides. And you can tell, you know, who are the partisans and who are not. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the other thing I want to say is a lot of those some of these congresspeople, senators, whatever, they they know their stuff, OK? Some of them do. Yeah. But a lot of them are a bunch of actors and they're reading off a piece of paper and all their stuff is written by somebody in the shadow. You don't know who they are. And if you watch any of these hearings, you will see people standing behind them, sitting behind them. Yeah. That are putting notes in their ears. And so whenever something happens that they're not quite prepared for, there's somebody to swoop in to give them a talking point so that they can move on and they don't look stupid. Absolutely. Oh, my God. Well said. I need somebody like that. Help me from not looking dumb. So, you know, even though Operation Choke Point 2.0 didn't really start get into its full operation until 2022, it didn't really show up, probably because we had politicians paying attention to the midterms. But after the midterms, there were some things that had happened. And also, there really wasn't any justification for them to jump into it and have a benefit for them during the midterms. Because when you look at the previous collapses that had happened earlier that year, like with Terra Luna, the Three Arrows Capital and Celsius, you know, they were a crypto organization. You had a hedge fund. And then you had a platform. They got the regulators' attention, but it did not involve banks. What involved banks, and this is how I think it was the nexus and allowed these people to come out of the shadows, if you will, was the collapse of FTX, Sam Bankman Freed, and Alameda Research. Can I just say, Bankman Freed? Yes. He's fried? Yes, Bankman Freed. He hasn't been fried yet. I don't know if he'll get fried. Unlike the other collapses, this affected a bank. And it was Silvergate primarily that was the first one, and then it was Silicon Valley, and then Signature. But Silvergate, it caused a multibillion-dollar bank run that barely survived. They were able to be shored up. And it ties into Nick Carter's timeline of Operation Chokepoint 2.0, beginning when Senator Warren had sent a letter to Silvergate around December of last year, blasting Silvergate for doing business with FTX and Alameda. You know, it's interesting, too. Like you said a little bit earlier, where nobody was really paying attention because of the primaries and blah, blah, blah. And then right on cue, you've got all this stuff happening in the background, first of all. All this stuff is continuing to happen. Nobody's talking about it. The representatives that are supposed to be representing us and bringing this information to the forefront, they're not doing it. Why? Because they're caught up in politics of getting so-and-so elected or whatever. Oh, sure. And right on cue, after those primaries are over, then bam, we have a story, hot now, FTX, the collapse. And then all of a sudden, you have all these senators that seemingly know everything. And they're like, we're fighting for you. And it's like, where were you? Where have you been? It frustrates me. And all the money that they received in donations from FTX, oh, we'll just give it to charity. It wasn't your money to give to charity. It should go back to the people that invested, who got built by this kid. Yep. A fly is a fox. But, you know, I think you're going to want to comment on this. It's like, interesting, after Silvergate was blasted for doing business, the next day, Signature announced it would be cutting deposits from crypto customers in half. In other words, it would force its cryptocurrencies to crypto current customers. Sorry about tripping over my tongue. I get so excited. It forced them to withdraw their money and take their money elsewhere. And it would possibly close some of their accounts. And then I think you had mentioned about the Federal Home Loan Bank being involved in here. Even though it doesn't say that, it's just that was part of that period of time when they had some influence to the downgrading by rating agencies for these banks. Yes. Do you want to expand on that? Well, one thing I wanted to say, when you're talking about Signature announcing they'll cut the deposits from crypto customers in half, in other words, you know, like forcing them to withdraw their money, same thing happened with a couple shows ago when I had the clip of Janet Yellen being interviewed and that senator was asking her, you know, about picking the winners and losers. And the community bank's going to be protected because they were alluding that, you know, hey, you're not a protected bank. And so anybody that had any money in these community and smaller banks, they were scared and pulled their money out. Right. Pulled them out of it. Signature, same exact thing. This is what makes me think that, you know, a lot of this stuff is all a show. It was already preplanned or whatever. You force these crypto customers to withdraw their money or you're going to have half the amount or whatever. Well, nobody's going to want to lose money, so they pull it out. Same thing happened with Celsius, all these things. And then the Silvergate and SBB Bank and what's the other one? Signature. Signature, okay. They were being serviced by the federal home loan servicing. And, you know, according to Nick Carter, there was a massive campaign to get them to no longer service these banks. Anybody to do anything with crypto. And so, in my opinion, if, you know, they couldn't take back the loans that they already gave to these banks or, you know, have contracts for. But by not doing that any longer, anybody that was doing business with these banks in that way, then it's like, well, gosh, they're pulling out. Because that actually, them servicing loans through these crypto banks, that led to legitimacy, right? And so people have confidence and they're putting their money in there. And then all of a sudden, so you draw them all in. You throw your fishing pole out. You get all this money to come and do these banks, right? And then all of a sudden, you're like, no, we changed our mind. This is too fraudulent, blah, blah, blah. Get them to take it out and then it collapsed. It's like, it's common sense how easy it would be to actually do something like that. Right? Yep. Yeah. It pisses me off. You know, to continue, there was another bank involved, but they didn't get the same scrutiny. And you may have heard about this bank. It's called Moonstone Bank, but it was formerly named Farmington Bank, which was a little itty tiny, teeny tiny little bank that only had a few people working in it. And it wasn't open regular banking hours typically because it was in a very rural area in Washington. And somehow FTX, through other channels, was able to acquire this bank. And there's some questionable ties to that acquisition. But it's interesting that Moonstone made the same announcement that it would be exiting the crypto industry. This is after FTX. Moonstone had a symbiotic relationship with FTX. Now, here's the thing with Moonstone. It was a federally chartered, registered bank, and it had some questionable connections to Jeffrey Epstein and to the likes of Tether. Interesting. Interesting. Well, it wasn't Jeffrey Epstein. I know a lot of people, they tie Jeffrey Epstein into, you know, all the sex scandal stuff and all that bad stuff. But one thing that stands out to me when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein, he ran large people, like billionaires. You had to be a certain – you had to have a certain amount of money for Jeffrey Epstein to even deal with. That's right. And it was all quiet. And so it's interesting that you say this Moonstone Bank or Farmington Bank had connections with Epstein. I didn't even – I wasn't even aware of Moonstone or Farmington. So that is very interesting to me. Do you know how many regulators knew about them? How many politicians knew about Moonstone? How much the media knew about Moonstone? And it was just crickets. Really? Really. I wonder how many of them banked with Moonstone. Well, I think that they did in some sort of indirect way. Of course. So, yeah, Moonstone – we should probably do a deep dive on Moonstone. That would be interesting. Yeah. So Moonstone escaped the same scrutiny that other banks did that were used by FTX and Alameda, ironically. And then a couple days later, the Wall Street Journal reported the Silvergate and Signature had both taken loans from the mortgage banks, as you just alluded to, the Federal Home Loan Bank. And this headline was intended to make the average American think that the U.S. housing market was at risk. Yep. Wow. Gosh, it's so frustrating. Yes. It's so manipulative. Yes. You know? It is. And if you're not paying attention to any of this stuff, you just fall for it because you don't know. You're trusting. Well, sure. I mean, there is no more Walter Cronkite. Sorry. Walter Stone. Walter Stone. No. No more of that. So at the end of January this year, the Federal Reserve announced a new policy making it harder for crypto banks to get off the ground at state level. So this is where the state of Wyoming has stepped in and wasn't part of our show prep, but Custodia Bank having difficulty having that get off the ground now. And with Cynthia, Senator Loomis, you know, is coming in there and, you know, locking horns with the Fed. We're going to hear more about that down the road. They also, the same day the Biden administration published a cryptocurrency roadmap, if you will, recommending that pension funds stay away from cryptocurrency. Now, just the last couple of years, people were sending some of their contributions. They wanted it in Bitcoin. And this doesn't bode well with the large investment institutions, you know, like it will come to me in a minute. New York Life, for instance, who was investing their reserves into Bitcoin. Fidelity also? Fidelity as well. There's a few others. So they, as institutional investors, can purchase and put their reserves into Bitcoin, but us regular folk can't do that. Didn't they make a ruling that now banks can only have like 15% in cryptocurrency? Right. They put a limit on it? But if you're an insurance company, I mean, it's just they put these safeguards in, but there's major gaps of exception. So you've got to be very astutely keen on what's going on with the regulation in and of itself. Because there's people who writes the rules, and then there's people that know the rules of the game, and they play that game. So the old saying goes, you got to know the rules to play the game. Right. Right. And if you're not clear with the rules or you don't make the rules, then you prevent people from participating. Right. So after the same day that the administration came out with this roadmap, well, not exactly the same day, but at the beginning of February, just a couple months ago, the DOJ announced it was going to investigate Silvergate over its connections to FTX and Alameda. But no word about Moonstone. It speaks volumes. Picking winners and losers, because that's what they do. Ironically, Silvergate provided banking service for some of the largest crypto companies, including Coinbase. Binance announced it would be indefinitely suspending their Binance USD coin, and suspending the United States dollar bank transfers to and from its exchange. So Binance was feeling the pressure, but they can operate outside of the country. So this came after it announced its banking partner, Signature, had limited United States dollar transfers to and from the exchange to those that were worth only to those who were worth more than $100,000, you know, to protect the little guys. I remember that now. Right. Then Paxos became under investigation. And the bad news is that Paxos used the BUSD stablecoin by Binance. So then they later on announced that it would cease issuing BUSD. See, Binance has been an irritant to the crypto regulators. And Binance, if you go back a few years, if you know anything about the crypto exchanges, and I know, Melissa, you know about this, is that Binance had its overseas operation where the rest of the world operated with them. And then they had a special United States version of their exchange because they did want to bring their services available. Many people were using Binance through other channels. VPNs. Yes, VPNs and so forth. And they wanted to make this open for everybody, even with the regulatory constraints. So now they're being pushed back. And Paxos has actually been one of the targeted ones. And so they're backing off of using BUSD as well. So they actually, you know, this thing called a Wells Notice, it's a notice that says it's going to intend to sue. So both Paxos and Binance received these Wells Notices. And 80% of the people that are receiving these notices, there is a lawsuit. It happened to Ripple, and look at that. It's been in litigation for over three years now. And the thing is, is that even if they have a weak case against somebody, you get one of those notices and you don't have the money to defend yourself. I mean, it's so easy to disable someone. Right. You know, if you don't have the time or the money to fight something like that. Really, oh, just frustrating. Well, if you go back to the stablecoin collapse, if you look at Terra. Now, Terra was an algorithmic coin. But nonetheless, they were cruising along, doing really well, until there was a news report that they may not be stable. They've got to question their reserves. And they were not able to survive that. But Tether had the same thing happen to them. And Tether had lost its peg at some point in time, but it regathered. And Tether had worked very hard to make sure that their reserves were solid. And they actually brought in auditing firms so that they can convey to the public and their customers that their reserves were solid, that they just weren't some algorithmically-derived reserve, that they were legit. They might have been backed by United States dollars or some hard currencies like gold and silver, real estate, that type of thing. Well, there was a lot of FUD going on around. There was. Big time. To scare people from even using it at all. Absolutely. It was one of the main pairs, trading pairs, for getting into crypto, buying any crypto, using a Tether pair. It was. And the same media apparatus came after Binance in January by signaling that BUSD may not have the reserves. I remember that. I don't mess with USDT, Tether. You know, part of that, some of the stuff is like, you know, even though we research, we're involved in all this stuff, there's so much stuff out there that you don't necessarily have time. So, you know, I don't mess with things that I don't fully understand. Yeah. Trying to get through these notes here. So you just made a good point. Should you unload your Tether for USDC? Not so quick. I don't know. Yeah. It may not be safe, either like Paxos or Circle. Even though they're based in the United States, there's a chance of facing similar levels of scrutiny. So the market pegs seem to think so, as the USDC did slip below its peg. I remember when that was happening. There was so much FUD around that. It was just about a month ago, and we were watching the USDC, and it got down to like 92 cents. And if you're pegged down to 99.9, you know, even if it gets into like 98, you're starting to go, oh, my gosh, what's going on? You know, it's two one-hundredths of a penny, you know, or two one-hundredths of a penny being under-pegged. It makes you nervous. So when it gets into, you know, the low 90s, that's a major cause for concern because we watched the same thing happen to Terraluna, and it completely collapsed. This happened to Tether and USDC, but they did recover. I want to mention one thing. I know we're coming up on the end of the show, but I have to ask a question too. So a lot of folks that are, you know, dealing with cryptocurrency, what they do is they take some profit. They would hold it in USDT, right? So instead of holding it, pulling it out of the crypto space, they were keeping it in there. And so by them creating all this uncertainty and kind of skewing stuff, it made people a little bit fearful, which then, what do they do with it? Do they pull it out into cash or do they move it into some other type of coin? And so that's why, you know, if people aren't understanding what we're talking about, I think that is why they're going after something like the USDC and the USDT and the fact that that is the trading pairs that you can get into buying some of these other cryptocurrencies. So if you can harm those, you can harm the ability for somebody to get the in and off ramp. That's right. Mike, did I? Absolutely. Which, you know, ironically, these pairs didn't exist just a few years ago. So there was still trading going in and out of cryptocurrencies, but you had to use swaps. So would it go away? I really doubt it. It's like, what are locks for? It's to keep honest people honest, but there's still a way around a lock. Yeah. So there would be a workaway around. It would probably go back to something similar to what it used to be before there was the advent of stable coins. But it's interesting, Melissa, because this is one of your favorite topics, is that Circle has a connection with BlackRock. In fact, BlackRock is one of Circle, which is Coinbase, one of their major shareholders. So would BlackRock keep Circle from collapsing? Of course. Well, they would keep them in. They don't call it Circle for nothing, right? Right, right. But I mean, but the thing is, so there's two things that could happen with this, you know, with BlackRock. But obviously, I mean, they're controlling a lot. Either they are going to try to kill, you know, so they have Circle, BlackRock has Circle in their inner circle, right? Right. So as a setup to collapse something or to control the industry, which is what I think because they're not going to collapse crypto entirely. They just want to rule it. Well, I think we've only got a couple minutes left, but I think that this is really important is that Nick Carter points it out that he really thinks that the whole object of the regulators is to indirectly regulate offshore crypto entities. As powerful as the United States is, it can't crack down on crypto projects that exist outside of its jurisdiction. So you go about it and you nibble around its edges in another way. Or you can't regulate these offshore accounts if those companies are in countries that are not U.S. allies. So that's probably one of the biggest reasons for them doing this. One other major reason I think is that, you know, by them collapsing these three major banks that were doing quite well in the crypto space, the decentralized peer-to-peer, all of that stuff, with them putting the 15% limit on banks being able to hold cryptocurrency, that prevents a network effect for them to gain any kind of significant because you're not going to ever be able to gain as much exposure to the crypto space and have enough participants to gain a network effect to overtake the current financial system, right? That's right. And so choke point 2.0, that's the objective, to prevent us as just citizens, we're coming to the end, of being able to do that. I mean... Yes, we're going to have to call it there, unfortunately. You know, the bright side of all of this is that the Bitcoin halvening is happening in 2024. And the halvening just means is that there's going to be less Bitcoin available, it's going to be much harder to create through the mining process, which is going to make it more scarce, which then will make it more valuable. Absolutely. So there's so much more that we can talk about, but we are coming up to the end of the show. And we want to thank you for joining us today on Beyond the Brink. This hour went very, very fast. So you can find our previous shows at betabroadcastnetwork.com and you can also follow us on YouTube, Rumble. You'll find us on Twitter and on Facebook. And with that, we'd like to say thank you very much, and we'll see you next time. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Bye now. Bye.