a16z Sounds Alarm: ‘Chokepoint 3.0’ Is Here—Banks Are Weaponizing Against Crypto

Wall Street’s latest power play? Squeezing crypto out of the financial system—again.

Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto team warns traditional banks are deploying ‘Chokepoint 3.0’—a coordinated effort to freeze out digital assets under the guise of risk management. Because nothing says ‘innovation’ like protecting 19th-century banking rails.

The playbook: choking off fiat ramps, delaying transactions, and ‘accidentally’ flagging crypto firms as high-risk. All while those same banks happily process billions in sketchy fiat trades daily.

This isn’t their first rodeo. Remember Operation Chokepoint in 2013? The sequel in 2017? Now we’re getting the trilogy—with extra regulatory glitter.

Meanwhile, DeFi protocols quietly hit new ATHs. The irony? Banks are creating the very decentralized future they fear.

JPMorgan accusation

JPMorgan Chase, one of the largest U.S. banks, was singled out as an example.

Under current U.S. law, specifically Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act, consumers have a right to access their own financial data.

But banks are now asserting control over how that data is delivered electronically, sometimes charging fees for access to information as basic as routing and account numbers.

A16z’s executive argued that such tactics could make transferring funds to alternative platforms more costly, deterring users and reducing competition.

“If it suddenly costs $10 to move $100 into a crypto account,” Rampell wrote, “maybe fewer people will do it. And if JPM and others can block consumers from connecting their own freely chosen crypto and fintech apps to their bank accounts, they effectively eliminate competition.”

Rampell’s words echo those of Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss, who said JPMorgan charging fintech platforms for access to customer banking data will “bankrupt” them. “This is the kind of egregious regulatory capture that kills innovation, hurts the American consumer, and is bad for America.”

JPMorgan hasn’t address the platform directly, but did address the criticism. The bank told Forbes that nearly 2 billion monthly requests for user data come from third parties, and that by charging fees it aims to curb misuse.

Rampell, meanwhile, is calling on the Trump administration to stop such practices by the banks before they become standard among the rest of the financial institutions.

"In a perfect world, consumers WOULD vote with their wallets. But every bank will likely do this, and getting a new banking charter takes years. Many banks have hostages, not customers," Rampell said.

"We don’t need a new law; we just need the administration to prevent this callous and manipulative attempt to kill competition and consumer choice," he added.