After the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform, Binance, and its founder and CEO, Cardano (ADA) founder Charles Hoskinson said that the crypto industry had to unite against authoritarianism.
Specifically, Hoskinson argued that the SEC complaint was “the next in a series of steps to implement chokepoint 2.0” in the US,” referring to a 35-page long letter to Congress called ‘Operation Choke Point 2.0: The Federal Bank Regulators Come For Crypto,’ by the law firm Cooper & Kirk, in his tweet on June 5.
Operation Choke Point 2.0
Indeed, the letter recalls Operation Choke Point, in which regulators “carried out a coordinated campaign to weaponize the banks against industries that had fallen out of favor with the administration, including gun stores, pawn shops, tobacco stores, payday lenders, and a host of other brick-and-mortar businesses.”
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In “Operation Choke Point 2.0,” which the law firm claims is currently in progress, “a coordinated campaign by prudential bank regulators to drive crypto businesses out of the financial system” or simply a “war on crypto” is taking place, the letter reads.
As Cardano founder explained in his most recent tweet, the end goal of this operation was an “agenda-based [central bank digital currency (CBDC)] partnered with a handful of massive banks and end-to-end control over every aspect of your financial life,” and an antithesis to the very existence of cryptocurrencies:
“This event seems to be a political philosophical disagreement with the very existence of cryptocurrencies and what they represent. An unelected group of people has decided that concepts like self-sovereign identity, owning your wallet, and the freedom to control your economic agency should be removed from the masses and given to the ‘enlightened’ few.”
Crypto against dystopia
As such, Hoskinson believes this regulatory event, “where you have a debate about compliance with a law or guidance,” is nothing new. However, he believes it could lead the US into a dystopian future and that the crypto industry needs to come together to oppose it:
“It does seem like this event is a perfect opportunity for the entire industry to set aside its fragmented nature and unite for a common sense set of rules and guidelines that can prevent the United States from slipping into a distopia that would make 1984 look like a vacation.”
Notably, he was talking about the 1949 novel by George Orwell set in an oppressive regime and totalitarian society ruled by the Party, in which the Party controls every aspect of its citizens’ lives through constant surveillance and propaganda.
Indeed, the SEC lawsuit against Binance is the latest in the series of activities against businesses in the crypto sector, following the widely publicized legal standoff against blockchain company Ripple, the case against crypto exchange Bittrex, and a stern warning to Coinbase of an impending enforcement action.
