Visa and Mastercard Received ‘Scrutiny’ Threats Over Libra Ties: Details

The impact of the Operation Chokepoint 2.0 expanded beyond the crypto industry to tech giants like Visa and Mastercard. This revelation came to light through Balaji Srinivasan, the former CTO of Coinbase Exchange. In a post on X, Balaji shared a screenshot of a letter sent to Visa, Mastercard and Stripe from US lawmakers, urging them to back out from the Meta-backed Libra project.

The Visa and Fintech Giants a Scrutiny Checks

Earlier, Coingape reported how US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen allegedly played a part in killing the Libra project as unveiled by David Marcus.

Corroborating this expose, Balaji shared an excerpt from a letter signed by Senators Brian Schatz and Sherrod Brown sent to the fintech giants. The letter threatened “scrutiny” on Visa and all payment services providers with ties to the project.

He said the “scrutiny” of unrelated activities marked a signal to regulators to “invent violations and impose fines till their targets buckled.”

The whole thing was lawless.

By “scrutiny” of unrelated activities they were telling regulators to invent violations and impose fines till their targets buckled.

And if Democrats did this publicly to Meta, imagine what they did privately to citizens.https://t.co/wZmUPYEqm5 https://t.co/YGWyPanobo pic.twitter.com/P4K0qEwddJ

— Balaji (@balajis) November 30, 2024

Meanwhile, Terry Angelos, the former SVP of Crypto & Fintech at Visa confirmed the scrutiny on Visa. He noted that Democrat leaders called the payment giant with similar messages and the firm had to scale back its crypto efforts.

This regulation by enforcement strategy marked the primary concerns crypto leaders have flagged in relation to the activities of the US SEC. Drawing on this, pro-crypto lawyer John Deaton has called for a probe on Operation Chokepoint 2.0.

Will Donald Trump End Operation Chokepoint 2.0?

By January 20, Donald Trump will take his oat of office as President of the United States. Ahead of this inauguration, many industry leaders are already calling for a cleanup of the system.

The ball is already set in motion via the Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E). The President-elect has already appointed Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head this commission. The goal remains to pursue efficiency among government agencies.

Elon Musk has expressed concerns regarding the revelations around Operation Chokepoint 2.0 as many have shared thus far. It remains to be seen if the commission will take direct actions to investigate this concerns moving forward.