If They Can Censor Kanye West They Can Censor Anyone

We’re not going to pass judgement on Ye’s remarks and that’s the point – we don’t believe any financial or tech company providing services should weigh in on the content of any legal statement or action.

But of course TradFi strongly disagrees. Banking giant JPMorgan Chase said it is closing the $50 million account of the artist formerly known as Kanye West and his Yeezy brand. Last month PayPal closed the account of the activist group “Gays Against Groomers” – an anti-pedophilia activist group. It has likewise closed the accounts of evolutionary biologist Colin Wright, conservative writer Ian Miles Cheong, the conservative Free Speech Union and the Daily Sceptic.

(Candace) Owens, who was pictured wearing a "White Lives Matter" t-shirt alongside West at a fashion show, tweeted a picture of a letter that appears to have been sent to West by the bank. 

She said there was no "official reason given" for West's relationship with the bank being terminated, though he has in recent weeks courted controversy with the "White Lives Matter" t-shirt…

The letter shared by Owens reads: "We are sending this letter to confirm our recent discussion with [redacted name] that JPMorgan Chase Bank, N. A (the "Bank") has decided to end its banking relation with Yeezy LLC and its affiliated entities."

According to the picture shared by Owens, the bank asked West to transfer his business to another financial institution "before November 21." The letter added that any accounts open past this date would be closed with the remaining funds returned via check.  

It’s a safe bet that with more than $50 million in assets, Ye will find another bank to do business with him. But most who run afoul of society’s hall monitors don’t have that kind of leverage.

American finance exercises social control on a scale even the Chinese aren’t implementing with their social credit system. This is one of the many reasons TradFi and the political elite are hostile to cryptocurrency. Decentralized finance disintermediates the third parties and they can’t have that.

TradFi allows government actors and private entities who aren’t a party in a transaction to interfere and take sides. They leech away percentages and can socially engineer in places they have no business. As one of Ye’s songs goes, “No one man should have all that power.”

What we are building with Silvermint will unlock Web3 and enable truly free enterprise and free markets for everyone.