By early 2017, Bitfinex was keeping its money in several banks in Taiwan. But the way the international financial system works, running an exchange required the cooperation of other banks too. Bitfinex’s Taiwanese bankers relied on other banks—known as correspondents—who acted as middlemen to pass money from Taiwan to customers in other countries. But the correspondent banks frowned on crypto. One by one, they stopped processing transactions for Bitfinex and Tether. The last one, Wells Fargo, cut them off in 2017. Then the Taiwanese banks closed their accounts. This meant that Bitfinex’s money
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