FDIC chair Gruenberg lied at least twice in his testimony to Congress today: 1. says SigNet IP has already been sold (false, & they are blocking the sale to interested parties) 2. denies that FDIC supervision is more onerous for banks that service digital asset clients (false)
Gruenberg then contradicted himself later regarding SigNet when Rep. Garbarino asked, saying it was "in the process of being marketed" In reality, SigNet has already received bids from interested banks, but FDIC is refusing to sell
Regarding 2), Rep. Emmer asks "has the FDIC ever communicated implicitly or explicitly to any banks that their supervision will be more onerous in any way if they take on new or maintain existing digital asset clients?" To which Gruenberg says "No." But this is false.
A subpoena of the FDIC will reveal that they absolutely do demand extra diligence and disclosure for banks servicing crypto clients, and have done so since 4Q22. They have special information requests for banks serving crypto firms. That's more onerous.
What's the penalty for lying to Congress?
Lastly - Gruenberg claims that all deposits from SVB were assumed by First Citizens. But I am almost certain that's not true.
1:14 - Emmer asks were all SVB deposits (incl. crypto firms) transferred to Citizens, Gruenberg says yes. Few hours later, FT says they absolutely weren't. Who is lying? What the hell is going on here?
We know for a fact that bidders for the SVB assets were told "no Cayman, no China, and no Crypto".
@nic__carter Catch them @nic__carter ! They are confusing themselves.
@nic__carter In fairness, I’m not sure there’s a contradiction with the article.
@matt_levine @dealbook @andrewrsorkin @kgreifeld @FoxBusiness @WSJmarkets @FortuneMagazine @ForbesCrypto who is going to investigate the 2 basic, fairly straightforward observations from Nic? Sale / takeover of deposits and assets would be full chapters in the staffer prep binders that they spent all weekend studying. @RNCResearch @DNC
@nic__carter The RESTRICT act is not to ban tik-tok. it's to dictate what is permissiable to say online
@nic__carter Maybe because crypto isnt deposits, it is make believe.
@nic__carter Hey nick i just want to thank you for all your hard work and dedication. You really bring a lot of good content to the space.
@nic__carter That's great news! Absolutely essential that these funds are safeguarded and transferred accordingly.