If you mention anything related to 'cryptocurrency' or 'Web3', you will be rejected.
Written by: Austin King, Co-founder of Omni Network
Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News
Recently, a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen revealed that many founders have been threatened by the banking system. I am one of them: out of fear of retaliation, I have never publicly discussed this matter.
So what is it actually like when it happens to you? My personal first experience was in 2021 when I tried to open the company's first bank account.
The beginning of the story
When I was preparing to open our first account, several banks rejected me. Whenever you want to open a business account, the bank will ask what your company does. If you mention anything related to 'cryptocurrency' or 'Web3', you will be rejected. After mentioning these terms and being rejected multiple times, you begin to realize what is happening, so I started using phrases like 'early fintech startup'. Eventually, this trick worked, and I successfully opened a bank account, allowing me to operate a business in this country.
Repeated strikes
Is the situation really just like this? No, it's a repetitive and ongoing process of strikes. Once you have an account, you'll realize that having only one account is a serious risk for businesses. You will eventually receive an email with a subject like this:
You will open it, but this request really doesn’t make much sense because they already have the documents they requested, yet you will still comply with the request to submit documents. The problem is that compliance does not solve the issue, even if we quickly respond with all the requested documents, our account is still arbitrarily frozen.
This account freeze has prevented us from issuing salaries. My team has great faith in me, but when the company cannot issue salaries, you will definitely start to doubt whether this is a stable place where you can work long-term. When hearing from the boss that 'honestly, we have the money, we submitted all the requested documents almost immediately, I really believe that we are being targeted because we are involved in cryptocurrency work,' you also can't be sure. Another example:
Sounds reasonable, right? They just want a few documents and gave us 5 working days. The problem is: sometimes they don’t even respond within 5 working days; it’s not about submitting documents, but about them approving the documents. They simply ask for the same documents that have already been submitted without explaining what the problems with those documents are. This strategy reflects the SEC's approach to stifling cryptocurrency in the U.S. over the past 4 years: unclear rules, making people operate in a fog, and stifling them with bureaucratic ambiguity rather than directly attacking them.
We are not the only victims. I have spoken with many investors from Omni who found that this situation occurs in many of their investment projects, to the extent that their portfolio support teams actively help teams establish multiple independent bank accounts to reduce risk.
Why can I talk about this now?
Because if someone like Marc Andreessen talks about this publicly, I feel the chances of being targeted individually will be reduced. I haven’t spoken out publicly before because I was worried it would bring more risks to me personally and my business. The main reason I am publishing this article is to provide further evidence that this is a real problem stifling innovation in the U.S. Over the past 4 years, the government has actively pushed cryptocurrency innovation overseas. I believe this is really dangerous for the U.S. We need to take a leadership role in the cryptocurrency space rather than pushing innovation to arbitrary countries like the Bahamas. Cryptocurrency is a technology that has the potential to significantly increase the sovereignty and personal freedom of people worldwide. I can hardly think of any other technology that aligns with the 'American Dream' as closely as cryptocurrency does.