Key Insights
- Coinbase said the SEC lost nearly 11 months of Gary Gensler’s text messages.
- The SEC settlement requires two additional disclosures, a records review and $150,000 in legal fees.
- Coinbase’s SEC and FDIC FOIA cases increased scrutiny of federal recordkeeping and crypto banking restrictions.
Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal said the agency lost nearly a year of Gensler-era text messages and argued that the missing records affected Coinbase’s ability to obtain complete responses to its requests.
The claim followed a settlement that ended Coinbase’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the SEC. The agreement requires the agency to release additional records, review its record preservation practices, and pay $150,000 in attorney fees to History Associates, the consulting firm that handled Coinbase’s FOIA requests.
Coinbase News Highlights SEC Settlement Over Missing Records
The settlement resolves a lawsuit that Coinbase filed in 2024 after alleging the SEC failed to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests. Through History Associates, the company sought records describing the agency’s position on Ether and other crypto-related investigations.
As part of the agreement, the SEC will release two previously withheld documents. The agency also agreed to review how it preserves text messages and other official records.
The settlement further requires the SEC to pay $150,000 in attorney fees to History Associates. Court filings confirmed the payment formed part of the final agreement reached on Wednesday.
Coinbase said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lost nearly 11 months of former Chair Gary Gensler’s text messages during a period of heightened crypto enforcement. The SEC’s own records identify the affected period as Oct. 18, 2022, through Sept. 6, 2023.
According to an opinion article shared by The Wall Street Journal, Grewal noted that the former SEC Chair Gary Gensler led a litigation campaign against the crypto market. During Gensler’s tenure, the SEC sued Coinbase and several other crypto firms, saying that they failed to comply with federal securities registration requirements.
SEC and FDIC FOIA Cases Reached Separate Outcomes
Coinbase filed a separate FOIA lawsuit against both the SEC and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in 2024. The company argued that both agencies failed to produce the requested government records.
The FDIC case focused on internal “pause letters” sent to financial institutions. The letters, which were issued between March 2022 and May 2023, requested that some banks delay expanding crypto-related activities while giving additional information.
The FDIC settled its dispute with Coinbase in February. Grewal later said that both lawsuits led agencies to change their disclosure and records retention practices.
According to Grewal, the changes would improve transparency and reduce the risk of agencies exceeding their authority in secret. His statement followed the conclusion of the SEC settlement.
Coinbase News Marks End of Long-Running Records Dispute
The settlement arrives after several years of legal conflict between Coinbase and the SEC. Earlier enforcement litigation against Coinbase ended in early 2025 under a new administration and new SEC leadership.
Grewal also pointed to the SEC’s enforcement history involving recordkeeping. During Gensler’s leadership, the agency imposed more than $1 billion in penalties against financial firms over failures to preserve employee communications.
He argued that regulators should meet the same recordkeeping standards they enforce. He wrote that the SEC destroyed documents it was required to preserve and produce.
The settlement closes the SEC portion of Coinbase’s records dispute but does not establish that the agency deliberately destroyed communications. The SEC Inspector General attributed the missing texts to avoidable technical and records-management errors. The agreement requires further disclosure and a review of preservation procedures, while the broader debate over federal crypto enforcement and agency transparency continues.
The settlement resolves the FOIA litigation without a judicial finding that the SEC intentionally destroyed records. The missing text messages were addressed separately in an SEC Inspector General review.
