Legendary Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff has announced the closure of his bank, the Euro Pacific International Bank by regulators in Puerto Rico.
Taking to Twitter to share the unfortunate turn of events, Peter Schiff said he has no record of wrongdoing, yet the regulators said he was unable to meet up with the minimum capital requirements to operate such a banking institution.
“Despite no evidence of crimes, Puerto Rico regulators closed my bank anyway for net capital issues, rather than allow a sale to a highly qualified buyer promising to inject capital far in excess of regulatory minimums. As a result, accounts are frozen and customers may lose money,” the highly vocal economist said in a Tweet.
Despite no evidence of crimes, Puerto Rico regulators closed my bank anyway for net capital issues, rather than allow a sale to a highly qualified buyer promising to inject capital far in excess of regulatory minimums. As a result accounts are frozen and customers may lose money.
— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) July 3, 2022
As Schiff explained, the struggle with the move to sell the company to another entity was because of a clause in the deal in which Schiff will own 4% of the company that will eventually buy the bank. He said unknowingly to him, the Puerto Rican banking regulators objected to this allowance due to the bad press about him.
Having spent about $7 million in operating the bank in the past 2 years, Schiff said he wanted out and would have restructured the deal should he have known about the plans to close to the financial institution.
“The reason regulators gave for tuning down the sale is that post sale I would own 4% of the company buying the bank. They said that due to the bad press about me, they did not want me owning 4% of a bank, even though they know first hand the allegations in the media are false,” he said, adding that “They never let me know they objected. I found out in C&D order to shut down the bank. Had they ever told the 4% stake was a problem I would have restructured the deal. I just wanted out. I had to put in $7 million in the last 2 years to cover operating losses due to bad press.”
Crypto Twitter Advises Peter Schiff to See Bitcoin as the Solution
Considering the fact that Peter Schiff has always stood against everything Bitcoin stands for including its idea of decentralization, proponents of the digital currency were quick to point out that such a move from the regulators would not have been possible with Bitcoin.
Perhaps a non-sovereign, hard-capped supply, global, immutable, decentralized, digital store of value would have been better
Good luck nonetheless Peter
— BNB Chain (@BNBCHAIN) July 4, 2022
Many advised him to see the bigger picture and embrace cryptocurrencies as a viable alternative to the authoritative nature of centralized financial institutions.
Peter Schiff is swift in calling out crypto investors, most of whom contribute to the bad press he cited regulators used as a yardstick to oust him out of business. While it is yet unclear what the next steps will be for the vocal stockbroker with respect to his response to the bank’s closure, chances that this event will make him to look kindly on Bitcoin are very slim going by his past record.
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