Buying bitcoin from “Your Friendly Neighborhood Banker-Man” | Columnists

Repeal of Biden-era strong-arm tactics clarifies that U.S. banks may indeed offer full suite cryptocurrency services and always could

As covered here in October 2024, now President Donald Trump reversed his public stance on bitcoin, campaigning for the nation’s highest office by delivering never-before-heard bitcoin-friendly political rhetoric. Picking up what bitcoiners responded to as nothing less than their own personal “Avengers Assemble!” war cry, Trump boomed, “… I will also stop Joe Biden’s crusade to crush crypto (currencies). … I will ensure that the future of crypto (currency) … and bitcoin will be made in the USA, not driven overseas. … I will keep Elizabeth Warren and her goons away from your bitcoin, and I will never allow the creation of a central bank digital currency.” 

Just what exactly are the ingredients of this word salad? In its simplest form, Trump’s administration is working to remove every alleged legal barrier that makes buying bitcoin a hassle — a near “rogue” activity — even. Industry proponents cite “Operation Choke Point 2.0” as an extension of a 2013 U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) initiative that scrutinized which business types banks served, such as “firearm dealers, payday lenders, and other companies that, while operating legally …” the DOJ was profiling them for being “at a high risk for fraud and money laundering,” Wikipedia states. Think about the Tom Cruise movie “Minority Report,” but with bitcoiners, and living with the ever-present fear of being imprisoned without trial for something others say you might do one day if left unchecked.

It’s no secret now that this faux “appearance of policy” became the Biden regime’s de facto approach to cryptocurrency regulation, oft-bemoaned by industry leaders to have taken place “by enforcement, rather than legislation,” as was the common cry from at least as far back as 2017’s “ICO craze.”

While there has never been any U.S. law against bitcoin, previous regulators have run a successful bluff with mainstream media and banks alike to make the public fear owning bitcoin, despite it once literally being cited in a Yahoo! Finance headline as the “Best Performing Asset Of The Decade, Returning Ten Times More Than Nasdaq 100.” The best-performing asset that your bank or investment broker never told you about, that is, nor told you that it is as easy to buy as paying a bill online.

But don’t judge; they’ve all had nothing but good reason to be “skeered.” California’s Silvergate Bank serves as an example of how a solvent institution can still be shuttered under regulatory pressure. Caitlin Long, blockchain advocate and founder and CEO of Custodia Bank, believed Silvergate’s closure came from regulatory pressure, posting on LinkedIn that federal authorities had “… threatened at least four banks in late November 2022 ‘because crypto.'”

Its crime? Silvergate specialized by offering banking services to legal cryptocurrency-technology-oriented businesses, against the expressed wishes of those previously running the Democratic Party. These last-year’s-news “representatives,” who “… represent mainly the corporate interests of the legacy banking industry, which helps fund their campaigns, and is losing fees and customers to the superior technology of bitcoin …” as stated in a recent RDR “Bitcoin vs. Mark of the Beast” column.

Those representatives are likely the type whom Reuters reported in September2024 as saying that “Silvergate Capital said that U.S. regulatory scrutiny in the wake of the 2022 crypto collapse made Silvergate Bank’s business model ‘untenable.’” Not illegal, mind you; more of a “We don’t cotton to your kind around here,” pervasive regulatory attitude towards bitcoiners.

Y’all got any more of that “Rogue Money” left?

For Roswellians desiring to legally obtain bitcoin, there have been about three main options: mine it; earn it by accepting bitcoin as payment for your goods and services or — what most beginners opt for — just buy bitcoin.

How? For beginners, the process has no more appeal than “getting online” using a 1993 AOL disc, listening to your modem scream like a dying robot-slave-turned-evil that you just impaled, all while tying up your family’s one telephone landline for hours while you surfed GeoCities.

Think about when traveling across borders: we trade our physical currencies at “exchanges” for local shopping; now “exchange” (noun) also refers to a “dollars into bitcoin” online hub. Perhaps the user intends to shop online to spend their bitcoin overseas without surrendering their credit card info to a stranger. Others buy bitcoin to keep some on their phone for truly local shopping; In Roswell, both my doctor’s office and my auto mechanic legally accept bitcoin as payment, for example.

Since 2012, a somewhat intuitive “click here to buy bitcoin” exchange has operated legally in the U.S., yet still, this is yet one more step to learn, one more service, one more password … . When truthfully, most people starting out would rather just buy bitcoin from the same bank or brokerage firm they already have a mostly harmless and even personal relationship with, if only it were possible.

Well, great things are afoot. On May 7, the Washington, D.C.-based federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) stated in a “Dear so-and-so” public letter of blanket response that “… national banks and federal savings associations … may provide and outsource cryptocurrency custody and execution services on behalf of customers. … banks may buy and sell assets held in custody at the customer’s direction …”

Note that this letter was a clarification, not a declaration of new law. In fact, it is a clarification of a clarification stating the same, issued in June 2022 by then-acting OCC comptroller Brian Brooks. I personally didn’t need the clarification, as I had been buying bitcoin already from legal exchanges via my Roswell branch bank accounts since 2016. I didn’t wait for government to tell me that I may have their permission to buy bitcoin, nor to start custodying my bitcoin via technology, sans bank or “trusted” third-party involvement.

But now, readers finding themselves a little grey around the temples may remember the advertising catchphrase “Be the first kid on your block to collect them all!” Well, a lot of people I know have been waiting for “permission” from “Daddy Government” to finally dip their toes into today’s bitcoin-infested waters. I know: You’ve just been “skeered up ’til now.” But now the coveted precious “permission” has arrived and from a friendly regulatory scene, finally. I’ve got a feeling that the first bank in Roswell in 2025 to offer bitcoin sales and custody will become the first bank in town to collect all the customers.

Just be forewarned, though, true believers: with great power, comes great responsibility.

Guy Malone holds three certifications in digital currencies and has written and edited for publications including Bitcoin Magazine and Bitcoin News. Reader questions about bitcoin are welcomed for response in a future column. Contact Malone via copyedit@rdrnews.com and/or @RichNFrenz on X. The views expressed in this column are those of the author.