According to the bank, crypto is illegal. They are bricking it.

I was at the bank earlier, opening a new account and some of the questions I was asked were not unexpected but rather misleading. After the general questions, ID check etc, I was asked if I had plans to use the account for any cryptocurrency transactions, and when I said no, he said that he was glad as that would have been illegal to do.

On hearing that it would be "illegal" to do, I probed more, by asking why it would be illegal and what law it would break. He said that it would break the law, but he could not tell me which one. And then went on to say how dangerous it is, and it is only drug dealers and such who sell on illegal parts of the internet who use it. Of course, on hearing this I asked why he was not being honest, as there are no laws against crypto, nor is it mainly, let alone exclusively used for drug dealing. I said that PayPal offer crypto and even some big names in the tech world hold some sort of crypto, including Elon Musk, who is one of the richest people in the world. I asked if that made Elon a criminal. Of course, he could not explain why this was, and promptly moved on, but I was not finished. This is a bank manager, by the way!

I probed again, and got down to the main question of why they hate crypto. He said that it was not a personal viewpoint, but from "upstairs" to push regular banking as the only way to move forward in this financial world.

I asked if this was because they feared the future of crypto, and they felt scared? I asked if I had said yes I'd use it for crypto what they'd have done, and he said that they would not have declined my account, but again on pushing, he said that they'd have given "seriously strong advice against cryptocurrency".

While all of this was not new news to me, it is clear how scared they are over crypto and that they will try to do what they can to keep you on traditional methods of finance. I suggested to him that he pushes the message up the chain that Crypto is not going away, and it's probably better to adapt and accept, than bury their head in the sand pretending it's not out there. If they did that, they might secure their future.