Israel's largest bank, filed an objection to the lawsuit of 69-year-old Esther Freeman with a request to reject her demand for depositing 1 million shekels (~$320,000) received from investments in bitcoin.

Eight years ago, a pensioner, on the advice of her family, bought the first cryptocurrency for 10,000 shekels (at that time less than $ 3,000).

In July 2021, she decided to convert digital assets to fiat using btcblender.se. However, the Hapoel Bank, in which the woman owned an account for 40 years, refused to accept funds for deposit. The financial institution motivated this by the fact that Freeman invested cash and the bank could not track the movement of money.

In a letter to the client, the bank noted that "the characteristics of virtual currencies allow them to be transferred anonymously and without supervision, often bypassing financial structures that counter money laundering and terrorist financing."

In November, Freeman filed a lawsuit against the bank, demanding that she be allowed to deposit the amount received from the sale of bitcoin into the account.

In a statement, the bank indicated that the plaintiff could not confirm any connection between the money in her account and the purchase of cryptocurrency. The bank noted that Freeman purchased bitcoin from an unknown person and "did not provide actual information about the price" of the asset.

The bank also referred to the position of the regulator, which does not approve of receiving funds from operations with virtual assets without a "satisfactory explanation of the routes of money movement."

Lawyer Freeman expressed regret for the "unfounded claims" of the financial institution. According to him, they are based on "baseless hypotheses." The bank's position was also influenced by distrust of the fact that a pensioner could invest in cryptocurrency, the lawyer believes.