OCC AND FDIC FINALIZE RULE FORCING REGULATORS TO SHOW THEIR WORK — “UNSAFE OR UNSOUND” NOW NEEDS AN ACTUAL VIOLATION, NOT A VIBE — ANOTHER BRICK OUT OF CHOKE POINT 2.0’S WALL

For years, “unsafe or unsound practice” meant whatever a bank examiner decided it meant that day. No statute defined it. No court had to test it. A bank could get flagged over paperwork, over process, over a supervisor’s gut feeling — and that same discretion is exactly how examiners leaned on banks to drop lawful customers they simply didn’t like, crypto firms high on the list. Today the OCC and FDIC put a floor under the word. The final rule ties any “unsafe or unsound” finding to an actual violation of law or a real financial risk, not policy, not documentation, not a hunch. Regulators now have to show their work before a bank gets leaned on to close an account. Eleanor Terrett calls it another brick out of “Operation Choke Point 2.0.” Here is the honest read: a rule does not undo a decade of habit overnight, and this does not guarantee any bank stays open to Bitcoin companies tomorrow. But a regulator who has to cite a fact instead of a feeling is a regulator who cannot quietly kill your bank account and call it supervision. Sunlight was always the fix. This is a little more of it.