Early last year, New York-based crypto entrepreneur Azeem Khan had just raised $19 million in seed funding for his startup, Morph, and needed somewhere to keep it. Before going in search of a US bank account, he asked his attorney for advice. “You have a zero percent chance of having zero issues,” Khan recalls being told.

If anything, this dour assessment proved overly optimistic: After six months and a multitude of rejections from US banks, Khan gave up. He settled for housing some of the funds with a bank in the Cayman Islands, which offered no interest, and converting the rest into crypto assets, managed by a third-party custodian.

Crypto founders have long traded similar stories in which US banks either refuse to supply them with loans or checking accounts, or withdraw their accounts suddenly. Without a banking partner, crypto firms are hamstrung: They cannot readily accept dollars in exchange for services, store and earn interest on funds raised from investors, nor pay employees or vendors. “All around, it was an understood thing,” says Khan.

Little more than a year later, that picture has changed. Since president Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, promising to end the alleged discrimination against crypto firms, a field of US-based fintechs—among them Meow, Mercury and Brex—has competed to furnish crypto firms with bank accounts. Khan, who recently raised $25 million for his latest crypto startup, Miden, claims to have been among those courted by the fintechs.

The change stands to make it far easier for crypto firms to set up, hire, and do business in the US, in line with Trump’s plan to turn the country into the “crypto capital of the planet.” Yet they remain at the mercy of the political tide; there has been a vibe change under Trump, but no change in law that would guarantee continued access to banking into the distant future.

“Even though there is a more friendly administration in place at the moment, there still hasn’t been anything codified into law—new laws that allow us to be sure the pendulum won’t swing based on who is sitting in the chair,” says Khan.

During the Biden administration, frustrated by their treatment by the banks, members of the crypto industry began to cry conspiracy. The federal government was deliberately trying to destroy crypto businesses by surreptitiously cutting them out of the banking system, they alleged.

Leading the chorus was crypto venture capitalist Nic Carter, who labelled the alleged discrimination campaign Operation Chokepoint 2.0, in reference to an Obama-era antifraud program under which US officials reportedly discouraged banks from dealing with pornography, payday lending, and other disfavored industries.

Under the Trump administration, congressional subcommittees have held multiple hearings on the purported Operation Chokepoint 2.0. Subsequently, in March, Republican members of the Senate presented the FIRM Act, aiming to curb alleged discrimination by preventing banks from factoring in “reputational risk” when fielding account applications. The bill has not yet faced a vote.

For crypto firms, the vibe-shift is a blessing. Although they have comparatively few problems accessing overseas bank accounts—often in the Cayman Islands or Switzerland—in lieu of a US bank account, they are often unable to earn yield on deposits or transact seamlessly with US-based counterparties, and sometimes incur high account fees. Neither do they benefit from deposit insurance under the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which guarantees up to $250,000 per account holder.

Though some of the big-name banks, like JP Morgan, are trialling crypto technologies for internal use, many remain reluctant to supply accounts to crypto businesses, sources say. “The banks that John Doe has heard of have nothing to do with crypto,” claims David McIntyre, COO at DoubleZero, a startup developing networking infrastructure specific to crypto networks.

But that has created an opening for smaller fintechs to expand their deposit bases by scooping up clients in the crypto industry. “Basically, founders these days are going with a Mercury or Meow,” claims Khan. “Meow has been super aggressive in terms of reaching out to founders anytime they see a fundraising announcement.”

These fintechs tend to market themselves as crypto-forward—providing integrated services like stablecoin transfers—and far less stuffy than their traditional counterparts; Meow’s roughly 30-year-old CEO, Brandon Arvanaghi, runs his LinkedIn profile a bit like a TikTok account, complete with video skits.

“These American fintechs have much better technology than random bank X in the Cayman Islands or Switzerland. They have better platforms, better support—better everything,” says McIntyre.

Mercury declined to provide an interview to WIRED for this story. Meow and Brex did not respond to interview requests.

In practice, these fintechs act as a software layer on top of a traditional bank that holds a US license; they handle the user interface and customer acquisition, while the partner bank manages the deposits. Meow partners with Grasshopper Bank; Brex and Mercury partner with several banks. This model was adopted widely in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced banks to find ways to reach customers digitally.

“In its best form, it’s a way for banks to get access to better technology,” says Craig Timm, senior director of anti-money laundering at ACAMS, which runs finance-related certification programs. Timm worked previously as a financial crime specialist at Bank of America and the US Department of Justice. “For the fintechs, it lets them focus on the things they’re good at—building, marketing, reaching new customers—without having to get a banking license, which can be difficult and expensive.”

But the arrangement also typically requires the fintech to follow ground rules set by the partner bank, including parameters around the types of client they are allowed to serve. Mercury, for instance, is unable to provide accounts to crypto companies that take custody of customer funds, including exchanges, a spokesperson told WIRED.

“They’re putting a skin on top of someone else’s bank,” says McIntyre, who previously worked at Brex. “They have to abide by the bank’s underwriting requirements, regulations, and determination about what customers to accept.”

In the past, says Timm, expansion into new lines of business—say, crypto—has been a source of friction between fintechs, for whom explosive growth is the priority, and their partner banks, who bear ultimate accountability for upholding the conditions of their licenses, including strict AML controls.

“Often where these things fall apart, it’s when there’s not a common understanding,” says Timm. Sometimes, he adds, “risk appetites diverge.”

That leaves crypto firms in a position where, although the fintechs are glad to offer them a US bank account at present, the underlying partner banks could in future choose to revoke permission.

Meow and Brex did not respond when asked whether their partner banks have promised long-term access to banking services for crypto clients. Nic Corpora, a Mercury spokesperson, said the company works closely with partner banks “to ensure risk appetites are appropriately calibrated so when we onboard a customer we can support them in the best way and for the long-term.”

Under a president who has installed pro-crypto regulators and pledged to end the alleged Operation Chokepoint 2.0, that risk feels remote. But what about after Trump?

“From a risk management point of view, I don’t think it’s prudent for a company like ours to have solely accounts with American fintechs,” says McIntyre. “There has been a change of administration and change in the interpretation of the law. The law has not changed.”