Key Takeaways
The Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to pay $150,000 and release its remaining Ethereum records to settle a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought on behalf of Coinbase.
The case surfaced that the SEC deleted former Chair Gary Gensler's text messages from October 2022 to September 2023, part of 21 official phones that were wiped.
The settlement is a records-transparency win at the same agency that spent those months arguing crypto tokens were unregistered securities.
The Securities and Exchange Commission agreed on July 22 to pay $150,000 and produce its remaining records to end a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit over its Ethereum investigations, according to a joint status report filed in federal court and reported by CoinDesk.
History Associates, an archival research firm working for Coinbase, sued the agency in June 2024 after it failed to fully answer records requests filed the year before. Those requests sought documents on how the SEC decided to treat crypto tokens as securities, the same question at the heart of the enforcement case the agency brought against Coinbase that June.
What the SEC's Deleted Texts Covered
The suit forced the SEC to turn over thousands of documents, and the court ordered it to prioritize everything sent or received by then Chair Gary Gensler about Ethereum's shift to proof of stake. The fight stalled in September 2025, when the agency's own inspector general reported that Gensler's text messages from October 2022 to September 2023 had been deleted after his phone was reset.
Later filings showed 21 phones belonging to senior officials had been wiped, five of them from staff named in the Coinbase case. The SEC told the National Archives about the loss in July 2025. That window covered the collapse of FTX and the agency's hardest push against crypto exchanges.
Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong tied the outcome to a separate case in which the FDIC was accused of burying evidence during the 2023 banking crisis, calling it a win for Americans expecting "transparency and accountability from the government."
None of this rewrites the enforcement history, but it sets a marker. The agency that told crypto firms to register everything could not hold on to its own records, and it took two years of litigation to prove it. WYDE Newsroom has tracked that posture as it shifts, from the SEC's first move to write a dedicated crypto rulebook to the confirmation fight over who will run crypto enforcement at the Justice Department. The most notable part of this settlement is small in dollars and large in what it admits.
People Also Ask
Why did the SEC pay Coinbase $150,000?
The agency settled a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by History Associates on Coinbase's behalf, agreeing to cover legal fees and release its remaining Ethereum records.
What happened to Gary Gensler's text messages?
The SEC's inspector general found that Gensler's texts from October 2022 to September 2023 were deleted after his phone was reset, part of 21 official phones that were wiped.
What was the Coinbase FOIA lawsuit about?
It sought SEC records on how the agency decided to treat crypto tokens, including Ethereum's move to proof of stake, as securities.
Does the settlement end SEC crypto enforcement?
No. It resolves a records dispute, not the underlying policy, though it lands as the SEC drafts its first dedicated crypto rule.