Linda Xie, co-founder of Bountycaster, reported being denied multiple times for a personal mortgage and banking services related to her cryptocurrency fund due to what she described as "Chokepoint 2.0." The statement was made on the social media platform X on December 6.
"I was denied by multiple banks on getting a mortgage and denied over a dozen times on getting a bank for my fund Scalar," said Xie. "Experienced Operation Chokepoint 2.0 firsthand."
Xie's post was in response to her previous 2020 post where she had reported being denied a mortgage by multiple banks and experiencing over a dozen rejections for banking services for her cryptocurrency fund, Scalar. She recounted an incident where a bank compared her cryptocurrency holdings to "holding marijuana."
Operation Choke Point 2.0 refers to the use of federal banking regulatory pressure to de-bank industries like cryptocurrency by leveraging "reputational risk" as a supervisory tool. This approach discourages banks from providing services to targeted industries without formal rulemaking or public accountability. According to Davis Wright Tremaine, it mirrors the original Operation Choke Point (2013–2017), which targeted politically disfavored but legal businesses.
Marc Andreessen, General Partner of Andreessen Horowitz, said on the Joe Rogan podcast that "over 30 founders had been debanked in the last four years," highlighting the growing trend of financial institutions severing ties with individuals and businesses in the tech and cryptocurrency sectors.
Linda Xie is also known as a former managing director of Scalar Capital, a cryptocurrency investment firm. Additionally, she co-produced Vitalik: An Ethereum Story, a crowdfunded documentary about Ethereum's vision and creator Vitalik Buterin. A graduate of UC San Diego with a degree in economics, Xie previously worked as a product manager at Coinbase and served as an advisor to 0x, a decentralized exchange protocol. She was recognized as part of Forbes' 30 Under 30 in finance in 2018.