U.S. lawmakers were divided during a congressional hearing focused on crypto debanking, revealing scars from FTX and concerns over why the digital industry was cut off from the bank sector.

During a House Financial Services Committee oversight panel hearing titled “Operation Choke Point 2.0: The Biden Administration’s Efforts to Put Crypto in the Crosshairs," crypto industry leaders voiced concerns about digital assets being cut out of banking services, gaining support from some lawmakers and others less so.

Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) accused the former Biden administration, during the hearing, of trying to cut off the crypto industry from the economy.

"Regulators should not be picking winners and losers based on what industries enjoy the political favor of the sitting president," Wagner said. "Individuals operating fully legal businesses deserve the right to seek access to banking and banks must be free to make decisions about the customers they serve without regulators pressuring them to tow the hostile administration's line."

The issue around crypto debanking has come into the spotlight on Capitol Hill over the past few months amid those calls for investigations and increased criticism from crypto firms who say they face challenges when looking to establish and maintain accounts in the U.S.

Some in the crypto industry use the phrase "Operation Choke Point 2.0" to compare it with Operation Choke Point 1.0, a 2013 U.S. Department of Justice Initiative that sought to limit banking services for industries considered high-risk for fraud and money laundering, including payday lenders and firearm dealers.

During a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Wednesday also focused on debanking, crypto-critic Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass). said the industry should not be locked out of the banking system.

"I don't think for a second that you should be locked out of our banking system," Warren told Nathan McCauley, CEO and co-founder of institutional crypto platform Anchorage Digital, who was testifying at the Wednesday hearing.

Coinbase, through consultant firm History Associates, sued the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation late last year for allegedly cutting off the crypto industry from the banking sector and requested the FDIC's "pause letters."

The FDIC began issuing "pause letters" between March 2022 and May 2023 to some financial institutions asking them to not expand crypto-related activities and to provide more information, according to a 2023 report from FDIC's Office of Inspector General. That office is tasked with evaluating the FDIC.

Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.) asked about the pause letters during Thursday's hearing.

"What the pause letters show Chairman Meusuer is that over and over again that banks were subject not to regulation by examination, but regulation by exhaustion," said Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal during the hearing on Thursday. "You had question after question raised."

A transcript from a hearing in Coinbase's lawsuit against the FDIC released on Thursday revealed intense criticism from a Biden-appointed judge who said that the FDIC has failed to produce a significant number of documents related to a previously filed FOIA request by Coinbase and may have destroyed information pertaining to the case, according to reporting from The Block.

Not all lawmakers though were convinced.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) pointed to significant pitfalls in the crypto industry over the years, including the swift fall of crypto exchange FTX.

"We know what happened," Tlaib said during the hearing. "Investors lost $2 trillion during what we call a crypto winter and a whole host of digital asset companies went belly up including FTX and Celsius."

Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) said Operation Chokepoint 2.0 was a "made-up statement."

"The question becomes this — do you want too much regulation, too little regulation or do you want it to be Goldilocks, just right?" Green said.

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