For years, Coinbase has sought access to internal SEC documents. In 2023, the company hired History Associates, a third-party consultant, to submit formal FOIA requests asking for details about how the regulator pursued crypto companies during the Biden administration.
The SEC largely said no. And it turned out there was a good reason some of those records were hard to find. In September 2025, an inspector general at the SEC disclosed that texts sent by ex-Chair Gary Gensler were erased automatically from his work phone from October 2022 to September 2023. That made it even tougher for Coinbase to figure out what happened behind the scenes during the crackdown.
So in 2024, Coinbase sued. The exchange wanted a court to force the SEC to hand over the documents it had been withholding.
On top of that, the agency agreed to review records from backed-up devices belonging to certain senior officials.
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This is not the first time a regulator has had to pay up in a related fight. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) had earlier settled a comparable records fight by paying over $188,000 in legal costs.
Coinbase's chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, had some pointed things to say about the settlement. "Unlike the SEC in the previous administration," he said, "this SEC acknowledges that what it did was wrong and wants to make sure it doesn't happen again."
The SEC's willingness to settle is a sharp turn from the agency's stance under Gensler. Back then, the SEC was suing crypto companies left and right.
This FOIA battle highlights the growing tension between the crypto industry and regulators over transparency. The automatic deletion of Gensler's texts further complicated the matter, raising questions about record-keeping practices at the agency. With the SEC now under new leadership, the settlement signals a willingness to cooperate rather than litigate, a departure from the previous administration's adversarial posture.
The settlement comes amid a broader shift in U.S. crypto policy. Under former Chair Gensler, the SEC pursued aggressive enforcement actions against numerous crypto firms, often relying on the argument that most digital tokens are securities. That approach drew sharp criticism from industry leaders, who accused the agency of regulation by enforcement.
This records dispute, while narrow in scope, reflects the larger tug-of-war over how much the public should know about the reasoning behind enforcement decisions. For Coinbase, winning access to internal documents could provide insight into whether past actions were politically motivated or based on sound legal analysis.
Coinbase's stock was trading at $169.11 as of July 22, 2026, up about 3.84% on the day.
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