HSBC, the world’s sixth-largest bank that has blocked customers from banking Bitcoin profits in the past, has allegedly classified Microstrategy as a “virtual currency product.”
HSBC Blocks Clients, Again
Microstrategy is a business analytics firm that has been encouraging businesses to adopt Bitcoin — most notably their influential founder and CEO Michael Saylor. Microstrategy has amassed enormous Bitcoin holdings consisting of more than 90,000 BTC.
Tweets have surfaced with supposed screenshots of interactions (emails and live customer service chats) with HSBC customer service representatives. In these interactions, the bank is instructing customers to stop buying MSTR stock and that HSBC will not facilitate the purchase or sale of virtual currency products.
A quote from one post reads: “HIDC will not participate in facilitating (buy and/or exchange) product related to virtual currencies, or products related or referencing to the performance of virtual currency.”
That email, dated Mar. 29, 2021, also stated that existing MSTR holdings can be held, sold, or transferred out of the customer’s HSBC InvestDirect account, but new purchases and inward transfers “will not be allowed.”
Disclosure: The author held BTC, ADA, XTZ, and AAVE at the time of press.
