Barry Honig was one of the founders of two of America’s largest publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies, RIOT Blockchain and Marathon Digital. These companies have a combined market value exceeding $14 billion. Honig, along with members of his close family, has been abruptly debanked by Amerant Bank and Bank of America. This action directly violates President Donald J. Trump’s newly signed executive order, which prohibits politically motivated financial exclusion.
At Amerant Bank, the closure of Honig’s family trust accounts on July 9, 2025, came just 29 days before Trump’s August 7th Executive Order banning unlawful debanking. The order mandates federal agencies to end the use of reputational risk as a pretext to deny banking services to lawful industries, particularly cryptocurrency.
Honig’s ordeal began in 2017 when short-selling hedge funds, including Anson Funds and Citron Research’s Andrew Left, published false reports accusing companies affiliated with Barry Honig of market manipulation. Andrew Left now faces SEC and DOJ fraud charges and is set to go to trial beginning March 17th, 2026. The SEC launched a civil investigation into Honig in 2018 based largely on testimony later exposed as perjured. David Hansen, the former CEO of MabVax Therapeutics, admitted under oath in late 2024 to lying about Honig’s alleged control of the company and the pump-and-dump allegations that he levied against Honig and his associates.
Despite settling the SEC case in 2020 without admitting or denying wrongdoing, Honig received formal no-action letters that cleared both him and RIOT of all allegations. Over 15 major financial institutions still terminated relationships with him. They cited “reputational risk.”In February 2025, Honig’s brother personally met with AmerantBank’s management to establish accounts for family trusts. None of these trusts was controlled by Barry Honig. He was not a beneficiary of any of them and Honig’s brother provided full transparency. This included SEC settlement details and exculpatory no-action letters.
The accounts were opened in March with meticulous documentation and every family’s children’s tuition payment explained in writing.
Then, on March 31, 2025, Hut 8 Corp merged with U.S. Bitcoin. This company was co-founded by an entity with ties to the Honig family. It is now valued at over $4 billion. The merged entity announced a joint venture with Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. They planned to launch American Bitcoin. This company aimed to make the U.S. the global leader in Bitcoin mining. Within weeks, Amerant’s risk department launched an aggressive inquiry. It focused on the Honig family’s involvement in U.S. Bitcoin. It also examined their previous crypto affiliations. It looked into the Trump-founded company American Bitcoin. This raised questions of possible political bias. Despite Honig submitting SEC no-action letters, he also provided court-ordered dismissals of related civil claims. He included proof of zero fines or sanctions. Amerant still terminated all accounts on July 9, 2025. They stated only that the accounts posed an “undue risk.” This was due to his association with RIOT and U.S. Bitcoin Corp.
How President Trump’s Debanking Policy Is Being Ignored
On July 18, 2025, President Trump signed the GENIUS Act, declaring America the “crypto capital of the world.”
On August 7, 2025, he issued an Executive Order explicitly prohibiting the following:
– Use of “reputational risk” to deny banking
– Political targeting of disfavored industries
– Continuation of Operation Chokepoint 2.0, the Biden-era policy exposed in a February 2025 House Financial Services Committee hearing as a coordinated effort by the FDIC, OCC, and SEC to pressure banks into debanking crypto firms and individuals.
Amerant’s action is a direct affront to President Trump’s mandate. Amerant debanked an American innovator. Barry Honig leads the exact industry Trump is championing using the same Biden-era playbook that the President just outlawed.
An American Success Story Under Attack
Honig’s companies are not fringe operations:
-Barry cofounded the largest US public bitcoin mining companies, which have added a tremendous amount of value to investors. Barry Honig founded and invested early on in Marathon Digital (MARA) and RIOT Blockchain (RIOT), with a combined market value of over $15 billion.
-Barry’s brother was a founder and early investor of US Bitcoin (USBTC), which merged with another crypto-related company (HUT) and currently has a market value in excess of $4 billion.
Investors in HUT have seen a return of over 475% since their announced merger. These companies are not scams or frauds; they are American success stories. These companies represent the exact industries championed by President Trump, homegrown technology that reinforces economic nationalism. However, Honig remains financially exiled, not just by courts, but by banks enforcing a discredited regulatory shadow war.
The concept of “Innocent until proven guilty is dead in banking,” Honig said in a statement. Hoing continued, “I was targeted by criminals now indicted by the DOJ, was personally cleared by the SEC, and I am still being punished. This isn’t risk management—it’s political weaponization.”
The principle of “innocent until proven guilty” – once a cornerstone of the American justice system that even the layman could understand – has been completely eroded in today’s regulatory and financial landscape in America.
The White House has been made aware of Barry Honig’s case. Sources indicate federal banking regulators may face scrutiny for failing to enforce President Trump’s new Executive Order.
Upon review of the email communications between Honig and Amerant Bank, Amerant Bank did not respond to requests for comment.
The post Crypto Pioneer Barry Honig And Family Members Debanked By Big Banks In Defiance Of President Trump’s Executive Order appeared first on Loomered.
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