My lived example shows that we have strayed too far. We shouldn't be regularly tolerating as a society

that law-abiding citizens can have their bank accounts frozen indefinitely by banks without explanation.

I mean, that sounds profoundly un-American and cannot be squared with the original constitutional rationale for the Bank Secrecy Act.

Welcome to Web 3 with A16Z. I'm Robert Hackett.

Imagine waking up one day to find your bank account frozen.

No warning, no explanation, no recourse.

This is not a thought experiment.

It's a real situation, and it's happened not just to crypto companies and their founders,

but to ordinary people who are just trying to live their lives.

That includes our guest today, who learned firsthand what it means to be debanked.

In this episode, we talk about the unseen algorithms that monitor people's accounts,

the ramifications of the Bank Secrecy Act, and how crypto and decentralized finance may offer

a much-needed check and safety net against the opaque systems of traditional finance.

Joining us are Uniswop Labs, chief legal officer, Catherine Minerick, who shares her personal story of being debanked and what it taught her,

and A16Z Crypto Finance and Operations partner M. Westerhold, who helps founders navigate these issues and who's

tracked dozens of instances of debanking across our own portfolio. A big thank you to Catherine

for trusting us to share her story, which you can read a firsthand account of in an op-ed she

contributed to A16cripto.com earlier this year. Find that and more in the show notes.

As a reminder, none of the content should be

taken as tax, business, legal, or investment advice. Please see A16Z.com slash disclosures for more

important information, including a link to a list of our investments.

When debanking entered the public consciousness, there was a lot of skepticism around this actually happening, that this was a thing. A lot of people hadn't heard about it. They were confused. The people didn't necessarily believe that it actually was occurring.

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