This isn’t the first time JPMorgan Chase has shut off a crypto executive’s or firm’s account.
Hayden Adams, the creator of Uniswap, announced on Twitter on Sunday that JPMorgan Chase had stopped his bank accounts without warning or explanation.
“I know numerous people and businesses that have been similarly attacked just because they work in the crypto space,” Adams wrote. “Thank you for personalizing it.”
Last Thursday, Adams’ bank accounts were closed. The action comes after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allegedly began an investigation into Uniswap Labs, the primary creator of Uniswap, the world’s largest decentralized exchange technology.
The Wall Street Journal reported in September that the SEC enforcement attorneys are looking into how investors utilize the decentralized exchange technology and how it is marketed, citing “people familiar with the situation.”
Uniswap Labs informed The Journal at the time that the company is “dedicated to complying with the rules and regulations regulating our sector and to giving information to regulators that would assist them with any inquiry.”
Brian Quintenz, the former head of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), currently serves as an advisory partner at Andreessen Horowitz, a crypto-focused investment firm.
“With guidance from the top, a shadow de-banking of crypto by [The Federal Reserve] or [The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] bank examiners is likely. If a bank is notified by an examiner that a particular customer is too hazardous, and the bank terminates the connection, the bank is legally prohibited from notifying the consumer why “Quintenz responded to Adams’ first tweet with a tweet of his own.
This isn’t the first time JPMorgan Chase has shut off a crypto executive’s or firm’s account. Erik Voorhees, the creator of the crypto exchange ShapeShift, had his account cancelled by the bank in 2018. The bank had already shut down a payroll account for bitcoin exchange Kraken.
