Via his Twitter account, co-founder and CEO of Compass Mining, a company that offers Bitcoin mining host services and hardware, Whit Gibbs reported that U.S. bank JP Morgan Chase closed their accounts. At the time of writing, the financial institution hasn’t provided a reason that justifies the decision.
Following the incident with Chase bank, Gibbs wrote the following:
Shoutout to Chase for shutting down Compass Mining accounts for doing our part to replace the old guard with self-sovereign, future-focused supporters of hard money. Get behind Bitcoin or get out of our way
According to its website, Compass Mining is a “Bitcoin first” company. Created with the objective of “supporting the decentralized growth of hashrate” and BTC’s network security, Compass Mining allows “everyone” to mine BTC.
Editorial Director at Compass Mining, William Foxley, attributed the decision to the company’s Bitcoin-based business model. He said via Twitter: Chase kicked us out for being a Bitcoin company.
The event has triggered a response from the crypto community. Gibbs’ tweet has been replied to by users accusing the bank of trying to sabotage the crypto industry and other comments that referred to the bank as a “dinosaur”.
Two replies stand out from the crowd, one from Magdalena Gronowska, co-founder of Canadian startup Citadel256, claiming that Chase is the “second bank in NA shutting down miners this week”. The other is from a Bitcoin miner, accusing the banking institution of restricting his account:
Not long-ago Chase put a limit on my daily spending and I couldn’t use my own money the way I wanted. So, I used BTC to buy ASICs.
Bitcoin Mining For Everyone?
Compass Mining recently gained a lot of attention when CEO of Twitter and Bitcoin advocate Jack Dorsey said that he is “trying” to mine BTC with their services. The COO of Compass Mining Jameson Nunney replied to Dorsey the following:
Proud to have you as an advocate jack, a processor for us and now a CUSTOMER. Your team really helped us out in a pinch and are a bunch of killers… Sam Laud In retrospect it was inevitable bitcoin.
I’m trying mining with @compass_mining too…
— jack (@jack) August 17, 2021
Many other users accused Chase of shutting down their accounts for no reason other than offering Bitcoin-related services. The crypto industry has suffered similar actions in the past from traditional finances, regulators, and politicians.
Therefore, is no surprise that the CEO of Compass Mining agreed with Mark O’Sullivan, founder of Swell Ventures when he said:
I’m so looking forward to the day when we look back on banks screwing us 6 ways from Sunday and we laugh at their demise.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin trades at $44,890 with sideways movement in the daily chart.
