JPMorgan has suspended the accounts of two Y Combinator-backed stablecoin issuers, Blindpay and Kontigo, over their ties to Venezuela, a country facing aggressive U.S. sanctions.
Checkbook, a U.S.-based payments company, introduced the startups to JPMorgan, The Information reported. But the connection to high-risk jurisdictions rang alarm bells internally at the bank.
JPMorgan says it isn’t getting tough on stablecoins. “This has nothing to do with stablecoin companies,” the bank’s spokesman reportedly said. “We bank stablecoin issuers and stablecoin-related businesses, [and] we recently took a stablecoin issuer public.
But the startups’ operations in Venezuela raised concerns linked to U.S. financial regulations, specifically sanctions enforcement.
Banks like JPMorgan are supposed to know who they’re doing business with, and where their money is coming from, or the S.E.C. comes calling. Trump is not known for his forgiving nature.
Trump takes tankers and declares Venezuela oil a U.S. ‘asset
At the same time as JPMorgan was aiding in the blockade, President Donald Trump pushed to tighten financial handcuffs on Venezuela further. Two weeks ago, Trump’s team seized two tankers full of Venezuelan oil and is currently monitoring a third.
Asked by reporters on Tuesday about the sale of the hotel, Mr. Trump had said: “Maybe we will sell it, maybe we won’t. Maybe we’ll use it as a strategic reserve. We’re keeping the ships also.”
Central to the crackdown is Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, which has been blocked under Executive Orders 13850 and 13884 since 2019. According to a Treasury Department notice published by Trump’s administration, oil sales are supporting Nicolás Maduro’s regime.
Earlier this month, they formally named fentanyl (which they claim is coming through Venezuela) a “weapon of mass destruction.”
On Dec. 11, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned six shipping companies that have transported oil from Venezuela by providing false location data and transmitting inaccurate shipment information.
The first is Myra Marine Limited, which operates in the Marshall Islands. Then there is Arctic Voyager Incorporated, also Marshall Islands-based. Then there is Poweroy Investment Limited, which is registered in the British Virgin Islands. Ready Great Limited, also from the Marshall Islands, was sanctioned, as was sales agent Sino Marine Services Limited, a UK-registered entity that operates the TAMIA (IMO: 9315642), which was flagged in Hong Kong.
Finally, there was Full Happy Limited, also registered in the Marshall Islands, whose ship loaded oil after a late-May transfer and sailed for Asia. Like the others, it was struck with that same designation: E.O. 13850.
