Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty
The crypto company was essentially reverse-engineered for Washington, D.C.’s stamp of approval. Protego Trust, founded by a lawyer turned venture capitalist, was betting big that it could be the squeaky-clean, bona fide bank that crypto needed to win Wall Street’s business. It had spent $80 million pursuing a coveted approval for a national trust charter, winning conditional approval in 2021. It then raised more than $100 million — at a reported $2 billion valuation — from big crypto companies, including Coinbase (as well as now-bankrupt FTX), among other investors. Its board included a former Fortune 500 CEO and even the onetime head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the country’s chief bank regulator.
“We courted regulation. We did everything that was required in order to build a pristine financial institution to serve the most discerning institutional…