JPMorgan Closes Strike CEO Accounts Despite Trump Order

In September, banking giant JPMorgan Chase abruptly closed the bank accounts of Jack Mallers, CEO of Bitcoin-focused payments firm Strike, citing ‘concerning activity’ identified during routine monitoring but providing no specific details. Mallers revealed the closure in a Sunday tweet, stating, ‘Last month, J.P. Morgan Chase threw me out of the bank. It was bizarre. My dad has been a private client there for 30+ years. Every time I asked them why, they said the same thing: ‘We aren’t allowed to tell you.” The bank’s termination letter referenced the Bank Secrecy Act and indicated that JPMorgan ‘may not be able to open new accounts for you in the future,’ while emphasizing the bank’s commitment to ‘regulatory compliance and ensuring the security and integrity of the financial system.’

The lack of transparency surrounding the account closure highlights ongoing tensions between traditional financial institutions and crypto executives. Mallers had previously dismissed JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s criticism of Bitcoin during a Yahoo Finance interview last year, remarking, ‘What do I think about Jeffrey Epstein’s banker being concerned that a distributed, decentralized, open public money could potentially be used for bad things, sitting on a ski resort in Davos? I don’t really care.’ This history of public disagreement between Mallers and Dimon adds context to the current debanking situation, though JPMorgan has not cited it as a reason for the account closure.

The account closure occurred despite former President Donald Trump’s August executive order explicitly prohibiting the debanking of crypto-related initiatives. This contradiction has raised questions about whether regulatory pressures on banks to deny services to crypto companies persist despite political directives. Trump himself acknowledged the persistence of debanking in June, telling Decrypt, ‘I can tell you, because I’ve been a victim myself because of my politics, that big banks were very nasty to us.’ His son, Eric Trump, also revealed in May that ‘some of the biggest banks in the world’ canceled accounts for him and family members at the end of Trump’s first term, which he said drove their embrace of crypto.

Following Mallers’ revelation, Bo Hines, who previously headed Trump’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets and now serves as Tether’s Strategic Advisor, directly challenged JPMorgan, tweeting, ‘Hey Chase… you guys know Operation Choke Point is over, right? Just checking.’ This comment references the crypto industry’s concerns about ‘Operation Chokepoint 2.0,’ the term industry leaders use to describe what they allege was a coordinated effort during the Biden administration where federal banking regulators pressured financial institutions to deny services to crypto companies and executives. The name references the original Operation Choke Point, a controversial Obama-era Department of Justice initiative that discouraged banks from doing business with industries it deemed high-risk.

Industry experts warn that debanking practices against crypto companies and executives could have significant consequences for financial innovation and access in the United States. Jason Allegrante, Chief Legal and Compliance Officer at Fireblocks, told Decrypt, ‘Trying to choke off crypto won’t make it go away, it’ll just push it to thrive elsewhere and leave the US behind.’ He also cautioned that delegating such decisions to regulators leaves ‘major questions about who can access the US financial system’ and ‘undermines the democratic rule of law for everyone.’

The JPMorgan account closure incident reflects broader patterns of financial exclusion that extend beyond the crypto industry. The original Operation Choke Point targeted various industries deemed high-risk, including payday lenders and firearms dealers, creating precedent for banks to terminate relationships based on regulatory pressure rather than specific wrongdoing. As the crypto industry continues to evolve, the tension between regulatory compliance, financial innovation, and access to banking services remains unresolved, with cases like Mallers’ highlighting the opaque nature of debanking decisions and their potential to drive crypto business overseas.