River Bans Payments From Chase To Try And Mitigate Child Trafficking And Money Laundering
On Tuesday morning, Bitcoin exchange River, announced it would be declining any transactions coming from JP Morgan Chase. River is well known for being the only "Bitcoin Only" exchange to have not used the now defunct Prime Trust for their back end. CEO Alex Leishman announced that the company would be parting ways with banks who facilitated money laundering and human trafficking. JP Morgan Chase is currently being sued by the US Virgin Islands for banking Jeffery Epstein despite the now dead, convicted sex offender participating in countless questionable transactions.
"Jamie Dimon sits on top of a vast criminal enterprise. He has recently called for the US Government to seize citizens property, and is the enemy towards a safe financial system. His complete level of disregard for the criminal activities happening at his company make it clear that JP Morgan Chase is a liability to work with," Leishman said on Twitter.
Banks have been increasingly more hostile towards the Bitcoin and shitcoin space by restricting services and making it really difficult for companies to continue to operate. Nic Carter has referred to this as a coordinated attempt to stifle the industry, similar to Operation Chokepoint which was a covert operation to make financial services difficult for certain legal industries the Obama Whitehouse found undesirable.
River is likely to cease supporting other banks as well which may create disruptions for their customers. Many of their customers seem to be applauding the move and shared that they would be switching banking institutions as a result of the change, but also the new knowledge of JP Morgan Chase's horrible behavior.
It is yet to be seen whether or not other exchanges would be following suit, and if there would be retaliation from other banks against River. What seems to be heating up is a finger pointing contest between which industry facilitates more money laundering and sex trafficking. So far, the fiat system appears to be well head as the total fines levied against banks for laundering money is higher than the entire Bitcoin marketcap.
