Throughout the globe, it stays frequent for crypto customers to have their financial institution accounts frozen and transfers blocked, whilst institutional adoption rises.
Panos Mekras, co-founder and CEO of blockchain fintech Anodos Labs, started coping with crypto in Greece within the late 2010s. Most Greek banks didn’t enable transfers to crypto exchanges again then. Mekras skilled blocked card funds till one financial institution lastly permitted his transfers, however first, he was questioned to make sure he understood he was interacting with a “dangerous” counterparty.
Mekras informed Cointelegraph that these early rejections are symptomatic of how banks deal with digital property as inherently excessive threat. That label typically led to account closures or sudden freezes with out clarification, finally pushing his enterprise to rely solely on onchain instruments and cost rails.
Public notion of crypto has since developed. Now, crypto is present process a picture refresh, from a speculative asset class to an infrastructure layer for future monetary merchandise. Nevertheless, Mekras mentioned he nonetheless experiences the identical banking limitations, as lately as a “few months in the past”:
“I attempted to ship cash from an trade to Revolut, and so they froze my account for 3 weeks. I had no entry to my [funds] throughout that point.”
The lengthy shadow of crypto debanking
Mekras isn’t the lone crypto holder with such complaints regardless of banks asserting expansions into custody and blockchain initiatives.
A January report from the UK Cryptoasset Enterprise Council discovered that financial institution transfers to exchanges have been being blocked or delayed, with roughly 40% of funds encountering restrictions and 80% of exchanges reporting elevated friction over the previous yr.
The council warned that blanket bans and transaction limits are sometimes utilized with out regard to the authorized standing of the trade.
Revolut is one in every of two banks that let each financial institution transfers and debit playing cards within the UK council’s examine, and additionally it is the platform the place Mekras claims to have skilled his latest account freeze. It operates as a licensed UK financial institution “with restrictions,” that means it’s at present build up its banking processes earlier than full launch. It additionally holds a European Union banking license by means of Lithuania and gives crypto buying and selling providers in its app.
A Revolut spokesperson informed Cointelegraph it treats account freezes as a “last-resort” buyer safety measure in compliance with Anti-Cash Laundering (AML) and Know Your Buyer (KYC) rules.
“A short lived freeze could happen if our techniques detect irregular exercise. This could possibly be a mix of some components, equivalent to if a buyer interacts with a platform ceaselessly exploited by fraudsters, or we consider that the funds in query stands out as the proceeds of crime or sanctions circumvention,” the spokesperson mentioned.
The consultant added that since Oct. 1, simply 0.7% of Revolut accounts the place prospects deposited crypto funds have been restricted or frozen after investigation.
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When banks shut doorways, customers transfer onchain
In some areas, crypto is blocked and leaves customers to extra excessive restrictions. Crypto on- and off-ramps will not be legally potential in areas like China, so customers resort to peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms or black markets to commerce crypto.
Whereas China sits on the intense finish of the spectrum, different jurisdictions have eased official and unofficial restrictions. Nigeria as soon as banned crypto and even blocked P2P platforms. Nevertheless, it formally acknowledged digital property as securities in 2025.
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Related banking friction patterns additionally emerged within the US. Lawmakers and the trade have invoked the time period “Operation Chokepoint 2.0” to explain the federal regulators’ casual steering that discouraged banks from sustaining relationships with crypto corporations.
The unique “Operation Choke Level” was an initiative wherein enforcement companies have been accused of pressuring banks to chop ties with politically contentious industries equivalent to payday lenders and firearms sellers.
In January 2025, Donald Trump took workplace because the president of the US and has been pushing for crypto-friendly insurance policies to place the world’s largest financial system because the “crypto capital” of the world.
Crypto debanking points have since been formally acknowledged. In December, the US Workplace of the Comptroller of the Foreign money (OCC) launched its findings on debanking practices by 9 of the nation’s largest banks. The OCC additionally revealed an interpretive letter to verify that banks could facilitate crypto transactions in a broker-like capability.
Whatever the constructive momentum, customers nonetheless complain that the banking sector received’t service accounts uncovered to cryptocurrencies.
“That is nonetheless the case [and] there are nonetheless anti-crypto positions. Some have even mentioned publicly that they don’t seem to be prepared to assist crypto exercise or have interaction with the trade,” mentioned Mekras.
Mekras argued that customers can think about absolutely detaching from the standard banking system and transferring funds onchain. It sounds viable in concept, however in actuality, most companies and customers nonetheless can’t function purely inside crypto with out dependable entry to fiat rails.
Banking’s flip towards blockchain infrastructure
In recent times, there was a world shift in how conventional monetary establishments have interaction with crypto.
Main banks and monetary infrastructures are more and more constructing services tied to Web3. Within the US, 60% of the highest 25 banks are reportedly providing or planning Bitcoin-related providers, together with custody, buying and selling and advisory options.
Throughout Europe, regulated providers equivalent to crypto custody and settlement are being launched by legacy exchanges and monetary teams beneath the Markets in Crypto-Property Rules (MiCA). Within the UK, HSBC’s blockchain platform was chosen to assist pilot issuances of tokenized authorities bonds.
In that backdrop of institutional adoption, some corporations working to bridge banks and blockchain declare that the challenges that result in account freezes are linked to tooling gaps and threat frameworks inside banks.
“The issue is that there’s an enormous quantity of friction as a result of conventional banks don’t actually have the interior infrastructure to interpret blockchain knowledge in a means that matches inside their present threat and compliance frameworks,” Eyal Daskal, CEO of Crymbo — a blockchain infrastructure platform for establishments — informed Cointelegraph.
He described the scenario as one the place banks typically default to precautionary measures as a result of they lack the flexibility to hyperlink onchain exercise with the id and compliance alerts they depend on:
“If crypto is concerned, they block the account and deal with it as out of scope. It’s the best choice for them as a result of they don’t have the instruments to evaluate it correctly.”
Crypto is getting into the monetary mainstream, however for a lot of customers, entry to primary banking nonetheless is determined by whether or not a financial institution’s threat engine can perceive what occurs onchain. Till that hole closes, the trade’s institutional embrace and retail friction could proceed to coexist.
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