Politics can make for strange bedfellows, and, according to a popular rumor in crypto circles, one of the stranger alliances involves progressive icon Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and a short-seller named Marc Cohodes who cashed in on the collapse of Silvergate and Signature banks. Cohodes is very active in Washington, D.C., where he shopped a research memo about the banks to numerous lawmakers and to agencies like the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
I'd heard about the rumor from two people in Washington, one of whom shared Cohodes's memo, and who say Warren's office used it to inform an aggressive regulatory crackdown on the banks—both of which catered to crypto clients. The allegation here is that the powerful senator is so fixated on an anti-crypto vendetta that she took advice from a short-seller who cashes in when companies fail—the sort of person who, in the eyes of many progressives, epitomizes an amoral Wall Street culture they loathe.
