Debanked to rebanked? Redefining financial access in the age of executive orders
When the annals of 21st-century finance are written, there will be a special chapter (messy, political, and deeply consequential) dedicated to the saga of “debanking.”
For much of the last three years, anyone working in crypto, from lean web3 startups to regulated banks and exchanges like Custodia Bank or Kraken, knew very well what it meant to be suddenly shut out of the U.S. financial system. Sometimes, silent signals or vague “high risk” assessments were enough. Other times, no explanation was given at all.
According to data released by AIMA in December 2024, fully 98% of crypto-focused hedge funds facing bank account termination were never given a clear justification.
Dubbed “Operation Choke Point 2.0,” this modern crackdown paralleled an earlier government push targeting politically disfavored industries. This time, thousands of crypto companies and their partners (including hedge funds and payments businesses) saw their bank accounts terminated. They found themselves stonewalled by risk officers or hamstrung by compliance teams afraid of regulatory backlash.
And just as the very word “debanked” became a kind of rallying cry, President Trump, whose own family suffered from financial weaponization to which one federal regulator has even officially admitted, took swift and dramatic action. On August 7, 2025, a major executive order declared that regulators could no longer pressure banks to cut ties with lawful businesses. It was a long-awaited intervention with implications still rippling through back offices and bank boardrooms.
But two months on, what progress has actually been made since that order? Have banks truly reopened their doors and reinstated the wrongly deplatformed? How are pioneers like Custodia Bank faring in this rebanked landscape?
The era of Operation Choke Point 2.0The backstory to President Trump’s debanking EO is both long and contentious. During the Biden administration, a combination of public skepticism, regulatory overreach, and caution after crypto’s high-profile collapses (think FTX, Celsius, BlockFi) conspired to push much of the industry to the financial fringes. Firms were left scrambling for international alternatives or forced to operate in limbo.
House and Senate hearings in early 2025, spurred by investigative work from figures like Coin Metrics founder Nic Carter, laid bare a pattern: crypto companies (even those with pristine compliance reputations) faced sudden, coordinated exclusion from any U.S. bank. Examiners merely cited “high-risk” flags or referenced unpublished lists of industries to avoid.
Despite public denials, internal FDIC and OCC documents now indicate deliberate, sustained efforts to curtail crypto access to the banking system, validating what many had dismissed as an overblown “conspiracy theory.”
For those affected, the consequences were real. Caitlin Long, founder and CEO of Custodia Bank, described the result starkly:
“Operation Choke Point 2.0 has been devastating for the law-abiding U.S. crypto industry, and Custodia Bank has been hit hard despite our strong risk management and compliance track record.”
Business plans stalled. Payrolls froze. Layoffs ensued. Innovation retreated offshore or into shadow networks (something antithetical to America’s professed values of economic freedom and technological progress).
Guaranteeing fair banking for all AmericansFast forward to August 7, 2025. With criticism mounting and advocacy reaching a fever pitch, President Trump signed the much-anticipated executive order titled “Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans.”
The text does not name “crypto” specifically, but instead prohibits “politicized or unlawful debanking,” the act of refusing banking services to any lawful business, regardless of sector.
What makes this executive order different? In a savvy, if unconventional, move, Trump placed the Small Business Administration (SBA), historically a lender of last resort, above the Federal Reserve, OCC, and FDIC as an independent overseer on debanking issues. As Caitlin remarked:
“This is a HUGE tell–the White House doesn’t trust the 3 federal banking agencies (FDIC, Fed & OCC) to clean their own houses.”
The SBA’s new head, Kelly Loeffler, is a former Senator, ex-Bakkt CEO, and open Bitcoin advocate, signaling a clear intent to enforce this policy without the usual regulatory foot-dragging. As Caitlin assessed:
“It’s not just anyone in charge at the SBA–it’s Kelly Loeffler. She’s a bitcoiner. Yes, the White House just gave a *bitcoiner* this 