tl;dr
Coinbase's chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, revealed that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) instructed banks to halt crypto-related services. Coinbase obtained this information through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Grewal criticized the FDIC's actions as an attempt to ...
Coinbase's chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, revealed that the FDIC instructed banks to halt crypto-related services. The information was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Grewal criticized the FDIC's actions as an attempt to obstruct financial access for law-abiding American companies.
The FDIC's Assistant Regional Director, Eric T. Guyot, sent a letter to an unnamed bank directing them to pause all crypto-related activities. Coinbase had previously sued the FDIC and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), alleging attempts to hinder the digital assets industry.
Grewal stated that Coinbase uncovered more than 20 instances of the FDIC instructing banks to 'pause' or 'refrain' from offering crypto-banking services through the FOIA request. He criticized the lack of transparency and expressed the public's right to information rather than bureaucratic obscurity.
In a provided example, Eric T. Guyot asked an unnamed bank to pause all crypto-related activities, citing the FDIC's need to make determinations about such activities before proceeding.
In June, Coinbase sued both the SEC and the FDIC, claiming that these regulatory bodies were attempting to cripple the digital assets industry.