Tom Emmer, Majority Speaker in the United States House of Representatives, has reiterated his concern that the federal government is using concerns around the banking industry to go after cryptocurrencies.
In a letter dated March 15, Emmer asked Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation President Martin Gruenberg to respond to questions about whether the government corporation has given specific instructions to banks not to provide services to cryptocurrencies, or suggested that doing so could be an “onerous” task “. The Minnesota representative cited the assertions of the Signature Bank board member and former United States Representative Barney Frank, who reportedly called the FDIC’s move against Signature a “strong anti-crypto message” rather than based on concerns about the bank’s solvency.
“These moves to manipulate recent instability in the banking sector, catalyzed by catastrophic government spending and never-before-seen interest rate hikes, are profoundly inappropriate and could lead to broader financial instability,” Emmer said.
Today, I sent a letter to FDIC Chairman Gruenberg regarding reports that the FDIC is weaponizing recent instability in the banking sector to purge legal crypto activity from the US pic.twitter.com/fDmaA0XGWv
— Tom Emmer (@GOPMajorityWhip) March 15, 2023
Emmer also lashed out at the Biden administration, accusing the lawmakers of trying to shut digital assets out of the US financial system. The Minnesota representative had already made similar claims before the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, in addition to speculating that the US government could easily use a central bank digital currency as a surveillance tool.
For many in the sector, the recent banking crisis started when Silvergate’s parent company announced on March 8 that it would “shut down operations” of the crypto bank. Silicon Valley Bank followed on March 10 with its own bankruptcy following a wave of withdrawals. USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle reported that $3.3 billion of its reserves were being held at the bank, causing the stablecoin to lose its peg to the dollar.
Some lawmakers and industry insiders have suggested that Signature Bank’s closure may have been a move led by government officials against cryptocurrency, as Barney Frank reported that there was “no fundamentally insolvency” at the time of the closure. The New York State Department of Financial Services I would have said March 14 that the bank’s closure had “nothing to do with cryptocurrency,” citing the company’s inability to provide “reliable and consistent data” to the regulator.
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