It should be noted that the topic of blocking bank accounts of cryptocurrency companies is quite popular. We can recall at least two such cases – all of them involving JPMorgan. In August 2021, for example, it became known that Compass Mining’s accounts were blocked. This is a company that allows customers to earn money by mining Bitcoin without having to interact with the hardware. The funny thing is that this happened shortly after Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey identified himself as a customer of the company.

In January 2022, JPMorgan inconvenienced the creator of decentralised exchange Uniswap, Hayden Adams. As the developer noted, the blocking went ahead without any prior warning or notice. You can read more about the story in a separate piece.

ASIC cryptocurrency mining ASIC miner

As it is now clear, the bank may well be held accountable for such actions. The main thing is to take care of filing a lawsuit.

The problems of cryptocurrency companies

According to the judge, UniCredit’s Bosnian branch had no legal reason to freeze transactions on the accounts of Bitminer Factory Gradiska LLC. Bitminer Factory estimated its losses at €131 million (or $144 million), claiming that the closure of its accounts “prevented its initial coin offering (ICO) in connection with a start-up project in the renewable cryptocurrency mining sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina”. The court took this into account in reaching its verdict, Cointelegraph reported.

As a reminder, an ICO is a fundraising procedure in the cryptocurrency environment. It usually takes place by issuing tokens that are sold to early investors. This way, the company receives funding and the owners of the capital get the opportunity to multiply their own investments.

Unicredit Bank

In their defence, UniCredit cited its “inability to do business with digital currency providers and exchange platforms”. However, according to the court, this claim is not supported by the bank’s policy documents. According to sources, the bank’s lawyers have already filed an appeal.

Cryptominer

Incidentally, in the Bitcoin mining industry itself, a strange proposal was announced the day before. It’s about actively campaigning for Bitcoin to switch to the Proof-of-Stake algorithm. Several eco-activist groups, including Greenpeace USA and the Environmental Working Group, have formed a consortium to launch a campaign highlighting the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining. As part of an initiative called Change the Code, Not the Climate, the consortium will place ads in major media outlets such as the New York Times, Politico and The Wall Street Journal.

As you can understand from the name of the project, the authors of the initiative propose to make changes to the Bitcoin code that would get rid of the computing hardware used to mine the coins. In this way, the cryptocurrency mining industry would use less energy and would not have such a noticeable impact on the environment.

However, it is important to note here that the extent of the Bitcoin "problem" is noticeably exaggerated. To illustrate, here is a graph comparing the scale of electricity use by BTC miners and other areas like gold mining, trucking and construction - the most costly area. Obviously, it is trivial for the opponents of decentralized assets to remember this ratio, and they themselves are pursuing a completely different goal.

A comparison of power costs on the Bitcoin mining side and other niches

That said, the very prospect of moving the BTC blockchain to the Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm looks unlikely. First, the current Proof-of-Work was the work of anonymous Bitcoin developer Satoshi Nakamoto, whose work is held in high regard by the blockchain community.

Second, such a translation of such a popular network requires lengthy development and testing, which many may simply not see the point. Finally, third, implementing such an innovation will eventually require the support of the majority of blockchain users. And since Bitcoin enthusiasts are known for their commitment to Satoshi’s original ideas, betting on a move to PoS is unlikely to make sense.


We believe that this outcome of the trial is sure to cool the ardour of bank executives who are blocking the accounts of cryptocurrency companies. Obviously, the fear of centralised authorities losing control of money, which does not work in the case of crypto, slips into these actions. So they decide to create problems for blockchain organisations in a different way. Hopefully, there will be fewer such cases in the future.