Chile Court Approves Banks Banning Crypto Exchanges, Can Market Survive?

On December 6, the Third Chamber of the Chilean Supreme Court officially sided with the state-owned BancoEstado after it banned a local crypto exchange by shutting down its bank account.

Orionx, a digital asset trading platform based in Chile, filed an appeal with the supreme court following an abrupt termination of its account by BancoEstado. Ultimately, the court ruled the case in favor of the bank, reaffirming that the bank cannot obtain sufficient information to monitor transactions and determine the identities of the senders of crypto payments.

The court ruling read:

“These characteristics and elements determine, therefore, the current impossibility for the Bank to comply with the aforementioned obligations, since it prevents it from knowing in depth the financial activities related to cryptocurrencies developed by the appellant, the most relevant characteristics of its operations, the foundations on which these are supported and, finally, if their amounts are…