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Carter was one of the first to alert about the so -called «Operation Choke Point 2.0».
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For the Bitcoiner, Signature was an scapegoat that justified the mass rescue of another bank.
Nic Carter, a renowned bitcoiner and analyst at the cryptocurrency ecosystem, has once again captured attention with a new research published in Pirate Wires.
Known for his work in unraveling the dynamics between cryptocurrencies and regulators, Carter was one of the first to alert about what he called «Operation Choke Point 2.0«, an alleged strategy of the Biden government to limit the access of cryptocurrency companies to the traditional banking system.
In its recent article entitled Signature Didn’t Have to Die, EitherCarter proposes an alternative narrative about the collapse of Signature Bank in March 2023, arguing that this bank, despite being solvent, He was sacrificed for political reasons to justify a mass rescue in favor of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)orchestrated by interests linked to the then president of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.
Carter’s central argument is that the closure of Signature Bank did not respond to insurmountable financial problems, but to a deliberate maneuver of the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) to invoke an exception of «systemic risk» that allowed to rescue the undisclosed depositors of SVB.
According to the author, Signature was chosen as a scapegoat because he met certain criteria: Your exposure to the cryptocurrency sectorthat made it unpopular among regulators, and their location in New York, which helped to give the impression that the banking crisis was a national and non -regional problem.
Carter argues that this decision had a significant cost, including a loss of 2.4 billion dollars for the Fdic deposit insurance fund, and raises serious questions about the improper use of regulatory power.
Carter’s article is structured as a detailed chronicle of the four days of chaos that culminated in the closure of Signature Bank. It begins with the context of the bank crisis of 2023, triggered by the voluntary liquidation of Silvergate Bank on March 8 and the massive run of deposits in SVB, which lost 42 billion dollars in one day. According to Carter, SVB collapse generated intense political pressure to rescue their depositors, many of which were startups, incipient companies Technological with unused deposits that exceeded 250 thousand dollars guaranteed by the FDIC.
Sources cited by Carter assure that Nancy Pelosi intervened directly with a White House call, requesting that SVB depositors were protected, a movement that, according to the author, She could be motivated by her husband’s commercial interests, Paul Pelosiwhose loan firm for startups could have been seriously affected by the bankruptcy of SVB.
To justify this rescue, the FDIC needed to declare a systemic crisis, which required the collapse of another bank outside California. Signature Bank, with 18% of their deposits from cryptocurrency companies and a depositing base with a high percentage of unseged accounts, became the ideal objective. This is what Nic Carter argues.
The author cites testimonies of Executives of Signature, such as Barney Frank, former congressman and co-author of the Dodd-Frank law, who said that the bank was solvent and had sufficient liquidity to face the deposit run. However, the FIC and the New York Financial Services Department (NYDFS) would have ignored these statements and forced the closing of the bank on March 12, allowing the exception of systemic risk to be invoked just 47 minutes later.
A key aspect of Carter’s analysis is the role of regulators and their animosity towards the cryptocurrency sector. The author recalls that, after the fall of FTX in November 2022, the FDIC imposed an informal limit of 15% on cryptocurrency deposits in the banks, a policy that had already forced the liquidation of Silvergate and that put Signature under scrutiny.
Barney Frank insisted that the bank was «eliminated to discourage others to get involved with cryptocurrencies,» a theory that Carter considers plausible, although his research aims more directly to the need to justify the rescue of SVB as the main reason for the closure.
The context of the bank crisis of 2023 helps to better understand the scenario described by Carter.
What happened to Signature Bank?
According to cryptootic reports, Signature Bank faced a significant tanks run after SVB collapse, which generated panic in the financial system. Carter details that, only on Friday, Signature lost 2 billion initially and another 16.6 billion between 4 and 6 in the afternoon, adding a total of 18.6 billion dollars in a single day. However, the Nydfs Superintendent, Adrienne Harris, He said that cryptocurrencies They were not the direct cause of the closurebut the decision was based on a «crisis of trust» in the bank’s direction and its inability to provide reliable data on its liquidity.
Another relevant element of the context is the impact of the crisis on the US banking system. Cryptonotics reported that, in the three weeks after the collapse of SVB and Signature, deposits in US banks fell by 13 billion dollars, a figure that reflects the magnitude of panic among depositors.
In the case of Signature, the deposit run was significant, but Carter argues that the bank had access to 33.5 billion dollars in short -term liquidity, which would have allowed him to survive if the regulators had cooperated.
In addition, the cryptonotic report said that investors interested in acquiring Signature Bank after closing were pressed to renouncing any relationship with cryptocurrencies, a condition that, according to Fuentes, was imposed by the FDIC, although the entity officially denied having established such a requirement. This situation reinforces the narrative of a regulatory hostility towards the sector.
In addition, the FDIC has initiated investigations against the executives of Signature, a movement that Carter interprets as an attempt to retroactively justify a decision that many consider unjustified.
In conclusion, Nic Carter’s article presents a critical and detailed vision of the events that led to the collapse of Signature Bank, questioning the motivations of the regulators and their relationship with the cryptocurrency sector.
Although its narrative is based on anonymous sources and requires a skeptical analysis, as the author himself warns, offers a perspective that challenges the official version and highlights the tensions between financial innovation and regulatory policies.