2023 has been filled with news regarding the closure of some of the largest banks. Silvergate Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, and Signature Bank all ended up shutting down. The headlines have been flooded with this news, and there is a pattern that is quite visible. One thing in common with all three of these banks is that they are cryptocurrency-friendly banks.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao was one of the earliest personalities to speculate about the coordinated effort to shut down cryptocurrency-friendly banks. However, he took down the tweet later on. Now, according to the latest report from CNBC, a Signature Bank board member, Barney Frank, has voiced that the action was a very strong anti-crypto message.
Frank said to CNBC:
“I think part of what happened was that regulators wanted to send a very strong anti-crypto message,” Frank said. “We became the poster boy because there was no insolvency based on the fundamentals.”
Will more banks fall prey to these speculated anti-crypto moves?
The failure of these banks, particularly Silicon Valley Bank, is regarded as one of the largest failures since the 2008 financial crisis. According to the details revealed by Frank, Signature Bank was operating normally until the users began withdrawing over $10 billion in deposits following the collapse of SVB. He also cited that there were zero indications of any issues until Friday.
Frank also cited that there is no real objective for the seizure of Signature Bank. All these point fingers towards the recent heightened scrutiny of the cryptocurrency realm by regulators and authorities. The closure of these three prominent banks that were evidently supporting cryptocurrency businesses is believed to be a strong anti-crypto message.
Even though it is unclear at the moment, if the pattern persists, it would be hard to deny such a possibility. Despite the banking turmoil, the cryptocurrency market is trading in the green, with BTC surpassing $24,300 at press time.
