A member of Signature Bank’s board has accused US regulators of intentionally discrediting the cryptocurrency industry by blocking the bank’s operations over the weekend.
Barney Frank, a former congressman and board member of Signature Bank, has alleged that the New York City Department of Financial Services (DFS) deliberately terminated all Signature Bank operations to send a negative message about cryptocurrencies to the public.
Frank has pointed out that government concerns started to emerge when Signature Bank clients began to transfer their deposits to larger financial institutions such as JPMorgan and Citigroup.
Although withdrawals from Signature Bank slowed down by Sunday, NYDFS and FDIC placed the bank in external management and fired top managers.
Signature Bank board members believe that if allowed to open tomorrow, they could continue full-fledged work.
However, the superintendent of NYDFS, Adrienne Harris, has refuted Frank’s assumption and insisted that regulators’ actions were necessary to protect bank depositors’ funds.
The US Treasury, the Fed, NYDFS, and FDIC representatives have justified their actions by stating that Signature Bank posed the same systemic risk to the US financial system’s stability as the collapsed Silicon Valley Bank.