Bank of America (BofA), a prominent multinational investment bank, has found itself in the midst of accusations regarding its alleged anti-crypto activities. Muneeb Ali, co-founder of the blockchain platform Stacks, took to Twitter earlier today to claim that the bank had abruptly closed his personal account without providing a clear explanation. Ali asserts that this action was in response to his Bitcoin transactions conducted through Coinbase, suggesting it as an act of aggression against cryptocurrencies as a whole.
These accusations sparked a flurry of reactions, with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong leading the response. Armstrong posted a poll on his social media platform, inviting users to share if they had encountered similar issues with Bank of America. As of now, the poll has garnered 11,820 responses, with only 9% indicating a “Yes” and 19% selecting “No,” while 75% chose to view the results.
Bank of America has yet to provide an official statement in response to Muneeb Ali’s accusations. However, Timothy Stebbing, an engineer and advocate for Dogecoin, has put forward a hypothesis suggesting that the reported closure of Ali’s account could be part of a larger trend observed among Western financial institutions. Stebbing’s tweet implies that these institutions’ actions may have been triggered by recent lawsuits initiated by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against major exchanges like Binance and Coinbase.
Despite these claims, there is little concrete evidence supporting the notion that traditional financial firms are uniformly opposed to cryptocurrencies. In fact, numerous major financial institutions worldwide have displayed a degree of openness toward the crypto industry in recent years. Several asset managers, including BlackRock Inc., Fidelity Investments, and Valkyrie Investments, are currently engaged in discussions with the SEC as they seek approval to launch the first US Spot Bitcoin ETF.
In other cryptocurrency news, the overall market capitalization has experienced a minor decline of 0.23%, with Bitcoin itself decreasing by 0.87% in the past 24 hours. At the time of reporting, Bitcoin is being traded at $30,701, maintaining its position as the market leader.
