The disruptive nature of the cryptocurrency industry will almost always be a problem for traditional institutions, who are at risk of being severely affected by widespread crypto adoption. While some companies are not making any effort to hide their disdain for the sector, some seem to be fighting it a bit more quietly. In what is considered by many as a move against the industry, Bank of America (BoA) has proceeded to shut down an account belonging to Roelof Botha, a current partner at venture capitalist firm Sequoia and Paypal’s former Chief Financial Officer (CFO).
In a tweet posted on Monday, Botha revealed a screenshot of a message from BoA notifying him that “after a careful review of your banking relationship”, the account will be “restricted from use in 21 days, and permanently closed 30 days from the date of this notice.” Botha captioned the post saying:
“After being a customer of Bank of America for 20 years, I received this notice today that they decided to fire me as their customer! With absolutely no explanation.”
A few hours after the tweet, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington offered an explanation for why BoA may have taken the decision, tying it to bitcoin.
“Bank of America just fired one of the top five venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. My only guess is he bought Bitcoin.”
While the real reason for the account closure is unconfirmed, the possibility that crypto is to blame, might not exactly be far-fetched.
This is because a similar fate was met by Justin Sun, the Tron founder. In a now-deleted tweet as reported by U.Today, Sun responded to Botha saying he was also ‘fired’:
“Me too. I have been a customer of Bank of America for 8 years and [got] fired as well.”
Maybe Botha’s ‘firing’ might just have been an isolated occurrence but considering that Sun suffered the same fate, it’s unlikely that this is just a coincidence.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has also weighed in, suggesting Bitcoin as a solution to a problem like this. In his reply to Arrington, Zhao says “bitcoin never fires you.”
While some traditional firms are constantly looking for ways to infuse cryptocurrency into their daily core business functions, some others are not yet sold. Regardless, it might be big enough news that the disruption is well on its way and is unstoppable.