On a day in August 2024, a cold email from JPMorgan Chase landed like a precision-guided bomb in the most rebellious corner of the crypto world. The recipient was Jack Mallers, founder and CEO of the Bitcoin Lightning Network payment app Strike. The content of the email was simple and brutal, without any explanation: his personal bank account had been closed.
This was not a simple business adjustment, but a silent financial eviction. The oldest and largest bastion of Wall Street unilaterally severed all ties with a young challenger attempting to reshape the financial order through code. The news exploded through Mallers' tweet, instantly igniting the anger and panic of the entire crypto community. This was not just an action against one person, but more like a final ultimatum from the old world to the new continent: your revolution ends here.
An Eviction Notice Without Explanation
“JPMorgan's actions are strange; they provided no reason,” stated the official Strike Twitter account, restrained yet filled with confusion. For Jack Mallers, this felt more like an absurd drama. He, an entrepreneur dedicated to providing financial services to billions of unbanked people through Bitcoin, was himself “debanked” by one of the largest banks in the world.
No warning, no communication, no clear allegations of wrongdoing. Just a one-sided termination of service notice. This “dehumanizing” bureaucratic operation is precisely what the crypto world seeks to overturn. JPMorgan's silence is more provocative than any explanation. The message it conveys is clear and arrogant: we do not need to explain ourselves; we are the rules.
The incident quickly escalated, and Mallers was no longer the only victim. The CEO of crypto investment firm TwentyOneCapital also publicly stated that he had experienced a similar situation. Isolated “account closure” incidents were rapidly linked together under Mallers' emblematic experience, forming a chilling clue—systematic cleansing seemed to be underway in the shadows.
The Three Forces at the Table
At this conflict's table sit three distinctly different forces.
Gatekeeper: JPMorgan Chase. As a symbol of the traditional financial world, JPMorgan represents order, compliance, and unmatched power. Its behavioral logic is rooted in a risk control system established over a century. In its eyes, the crypto industry is rife with money laundering, fraud, and regulatory uncertainty. Closing Mallers' account may be seen from the bank's perspective as a standard, even cautious, risk elimination. However, the choice of target and timing transformed its actions from mere business decisions into a posture, a deterrent against the entire crypto ecosystem.
Challenger: Jack Mallers and Strike. Mallers is a typical crypto fundamentalist. He openly and frequently preaches Bitcoin, viewing Strike as a weapon to break the banking monopoly and achieve financial inclusion. His very existence is a direct challenge to the centralized system represented by JPMorgan. When this most radical revolutionary is precisely targeted by the old world's power core, its symbolic significance is self-evident.
Interpreters: The Crypto Community and Opinion Leaders. This force amplifies and defines the event. They refuse to accept the mundane explanation of “conventional risk management.” In their eyes, this is a war.
“This reinforces the necessity of crypto decentralization,” investor Anthony Pompliano's viewpoint quickly became a community consensus. Caitlin Long, founder of Custodia Bank, provided a more alarming diagnosis, calling it a continuation of “Chokepoint 2.0,” a systematic attack on the crypto industry. Erik Voorhees, founder of ShapeShift, made a more direct comment: “Banks are stifling innovation.”
Together, they constructed a grand narrative: JPMorgan is not a solitary hunter but an executor of a vast regulatory machine. Mallers' experience is the latest ambush in this shadow war.
The Chain Reaction in the Eye of the Storm
JPMorgan's “eviction notice” was like a boulder thrown into a lake, sending ripples that quickly spread.
First came the FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) permeating the community. Discussions on Twitter were filled with anxiety: “Who will be next?” “Will we crypto practitioners all be excluded by mainstream banks?” This sense of fear stems from a profound asymmetry: the innovators in the crypto world still rely on the traditional banking system they seek to disrupt for their livelihoods and business operations. This financial lifeline connecting the old and new worlds is fragile and vulnerable.
Next, the anger transformed into calls for action. A movement to boycott JPMorgan was brewing on social media. Users encouraged each other to move their funds from traditional banks to crypto-friendly banks or, more radically, to DeFi and self-custody wallets. This incident ironically became one of the most effective advertisements for decentralized finance.
More importantly, it forced the entire industry to reevaluate its relationship with traditional finance. In the past, people were pleased to see Wall Street embrace Bitcoin ETFs, viewing it as a victory. But Mallers' experience was a cold splash of water, waking everyone from their fantasies: beneath the surface of cooperation and integration lies deep-rooted suspicion and exclusion. Traditional financial institutions may accept your asset class but may not tolerate your revolutionary ideas.
Chokepoint 2.0: A Shadow War Against Crypto
To understand JPMorgan's true intentions, one must place it in a broader context—“Chokepoint 2.0.”
This term originates from “Operation Chokepoint” during the Obama administration, when U.S. federal regulators were accused of pressuring banks to cut off financial services to “high-risk” industries like gun dealers and payday lenders. Today, the crypto community believes this strategy is being used in a more covert and systematic way against the crypto industry.
This is not baseless. a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen recently described this phenomenon as the “dark side of regulation” in a deep conversation. He pointed out that many restrictions on the crypto industry do not stem from explicit legal texts but from regulatory agencies' “window guidance” and “informal pressure” on banks. To avoid potential regulatory troubles, banks prefer to “cut off” entire crypto client groups rather than bear any compliance risks.
Under this “shadow regulation,” banks have become de facto enforcers. They can sever the financial lifeline of an innovative enterprise or individual without needing to explain themselves. This is not merely an exploitation of code vulnerabilities but a precise demolition of the trust foundation of DeFi. It attacks not a specific protocol but the bridge connecting the crypto world to the real world.
Ironically, all this occurred after former President Trump publicly expressed support for cryptocurrencies. This reveals a harsh truth: politicians' verbal commitments cannot change the inertia and hostility rooted deep within the financial bureaucratic system. The level of this war has transcended partisan politics, entering the deep waters of maintaining the “orthodoxy” of the financial system.
Where Do We Go When Banks Become Adversaries?
Whether Jack Mallers' account will ultimately be restored is no longer the key issue. JPMorgan's actions have permanently altered the crypto industry's expectations for the future. It poses an ultimate question: when banks become explicit adversaries, where should the crypto world go?
One possible outcome is that this will catalyze the crypto industry's “complete independence.” This incident has painfully educated the market: relying on the goodwill of centralized adversaries is akin to handing over one's fate to others. In the future, we will see more resources flowing into DeFi, self-custody solutions, and crypto-friendly banks, aiming to establish a truly parallel financial infrastructure unencumbered by the traditional banking system. JPMorgan may have tried to close a door but could have opened a window to a more thoroughly decentralized world.
Another possibility is that this conflict will escalate into a full-blown political and legal struggle. The crypto industry can no longer be satisfied with innovating on the margins of technology and markets; it must enter the power center of Washington to fight for its financial rights. The future battleground will no longer be codebases and exchanges but Capitol Hill and courtrooms. The crypto industry needs its lobbyists, lawyers, and political allies to ensure that financial inclusion is not just an ideal in the Bitcoin white paper but a legally protected fundamental right.
Regardless of the outcome, JPMorgan's financial eviction of Jack Mallers will be remembered as a landmark turning point in crypto history. It marks the end of an era of naivety. There has never been a warm and fuzzy integration between the crypto world and traditional finance; only an uncompromising power struggle over the future control of finance. Wall Street pulled the trigger, but it may not have realized that this shot could ultimately signal the start of the crypto world's war for independence.
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