The SEC settles with Coinbase over its missing Gary Gensler texts

Coinbase chief Brian Armstrong targeted the agency on social media, claiming the erased message chains point to a broader lack of government accountability.

The SEC settles with Coinbase over its missing Gary Gensler texts

Policy

The SEC settles with Coinbase over its missing Gary Gensler texts

A new court status report reveals the agency will pay a flat fee to resolve a two-year fight over what former Chair Gary Gensler knew about Ethereum.

By

Olivier Acuna

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Edited by

Jamie Crawley

Jul 23, 2026, 3:36 p.m.

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Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO, said the SEC settlement agreement is a huge win for crypto. (Jesse Hamilton/CoinDesk)

Summary

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The Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to pay $150,000 and produce remaining records to settle a FOIA lawsuit over its investigations into Ethereum.

History Associates Inc., working on behalf of Coinbase, had sued in June 2024 after the SEC failed to fully respond to records requests about Ethereum’s shift to proof-of-stake and earlier crypto enforcement actions.

The case, which forced the SEC to turn over thousands of documents and revealed the deletion of texts and data from phones of top officials including Gary Gensler, will be dismissed once final production is complete.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) agreed to pay $150,000 to settle a federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit over its investigations into Ethereum, according to

a joint status report

filed July 22.

History Associates Inc. and the SEC asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to dismiss the case after reaching a settlement deal. Under the agreement, the agency will produce the remaining responsive documents and pay the flat fee to cover the plaintiff's legal fees.

History Associates, which provides professional historical research, writing and archival services to government agencies,

filed the lawsuit in June 2024

. Working on behalf of Coinbase, the firm had submitted three public records requests the year before. Those filings sought documents on SEC investigations into Zachary Coburn and Enigma MPC, along with records on how Ethereum shifted to a proof-of-stake system.

The lawsuit compelled the SEC to hand over thousands of documents, with the court explicitly ordering the agency 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.

The document fight stalled in September 2025 as the SEC’s Inspector General reported that the agency accidentally deleted Gary Gensler’s text messages from October 2022 to September 2023. Later court updates showed the agency wiped 21 phones belonging to top officials, of which five belonged to the same staff members targeted in the Coinbase case. The SEC told the National Archives about the deleted phones in July 2025.

Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO tied the ruling it to an

FDIC case

around buried evidence during the 2023 banking crisis.

“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,”

he wrote in a post on X

. “This is not only for us, but for every American and every American company expecting transparency and accountability from the government.”

The dismissal brings to a close more than two years of litigation over the document requests. Once the SEC completes production of the remaining records, the case will be formally dismissed.

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