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SEC pays $150,000
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to pay $150,000 to settle a federal Freedom of Information Act lawsuit tied to its investigations into Ethereum, according to a joint status report filed July 22.
“Coinbase has settled its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission, closing a years-long fight that came to rest on a batch of text messages the agency admits it destroyed”
History Associates Inc., working on behalf of Coinbase, filed the lawsuit in June 2024 after the SEC failed to fully respond to records requests submitted the year before seeking documents on SEC investigations into Zachary Coburn and Enigma MPC, along with records on how Ethereum shifted to a proof-of-stake system.
The document fight stalled in September 2025 when the SEC’s Inspector General reported the agency accidentally deleted Gary Gensler’s text messages from October 2022 to September 2023, and later court updates showed the agency wiped 21 phones belonging to top officials, including five belonging to the same staff members targeted in the Coinbase case.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong tied the settlement to a broader fight, writing on X, “The Gensler SEC deleted texts at the height of the anti-crypto campaign, FDIC buried evidence - it was all uncovered after we fought to expose the truth,” as the case was set to be dismissed once the SEC completes production of remaining records.
Grewal: transparency win
Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal said the settlement required the SEC to release two previously withheld documents and review how it preserves text messages and other official records, while the SEC agreed to pay $150,000 in attorney fees to History Associates.
Grewal argued that the missing communications affected Coinbase’s ability to obtain complete responses to its requests, and he said the SEC lost nearly 11 months of former Chair Gary Gensler’s text messages during the period identified in the SEC’s own records as Oct. 18, 2022, through Sept. 6, 2023.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed referenced by multiple outlets, Grewal wrote that the SEC’s Inspector General report showed the agency destroyed “documents they were required to preserve and produce,” and he framed the outcome as a “win for transparency” in Coinbase’s account of the settlement.
Finance Magnates also quoted Grewal saying, “Unlike the SEC in the previous administration, this SEC acknowledges that what it did was wrong and wants to make sure it doesn't happen again,” as the settlement closed the SEC portion of the records dispute without a judicial finding that the SEC intentionally destroyed communications.
Recordkeeping overhaul
The settlement also required the SEC to produce remaining responsive documents and to revise its policies for preserving official communications, with the SEC agreeing to release two previously withheld documents and to review its records and text-message preservation.
The SEC’s Inspector General found in 2025 that avoidable IT failures and a “factory reset” caused the loss of Gensler’s messages, and the missing texts covered Oct. 18, 2022, through Sept. 6, 2023.
Coinbase’s FOIA suit had sought internal SEC records describing the agency’s position on Ether and other crypto-related investigations, and the court explicitly ordered the SEC to prioritize all records and communications sent, received or evaluated by then SEC Chair Gary Gensler concerning Ethereum’s migration from a proof-of-work blockchain to a proof-of-stake network.
CoinDesk reported that once the SEC completes production of the remaining records, the case will be formally dismissed, while the settlement’s practical stakes were tied to whether the SEC’s preservation review changes how it “keeps track of its communications” for future FOIA requesters seeking crypto policy and enforcement records.
