The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reached a settlement with Coinbase in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case related to its investigations into Ethereum and missing messages from former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler.
According to a joint declaration filed with the court on July 22, the SEC agreed to pay plaintiff History Associates Inc. $150,000 and disclose relevant, previously unpublished documents. Following the settlement, the parties moved to dismiss the case in the District Court in Washington, DC.
History Associates, which provides historical research, editorial and archival services to public institutions, filed the complaint on behalf of Coinbase in June 2024. The company had filed three separate public records requests with the SEC a year earlier.
The requests sought to disclose documents relating to the SEC’s investigations into Zachary Coburn and Enigma MPC, as well as internal records related to Ethereum’s transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake systems.
The legal proceedings prompted the SEC to turn over thousands of documents. The court also ruled that the agency should prioritize all records and correspondence sent, received, or evaluated by Gary Gensler regarding Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake.
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However, the document sharing process was disrupted when the SEC Inspector General announced in September 2025 that Gensler’s text messages from October 2022 to September 2023 had been accidentally deleted.
Later court records revealed that the SEC wiped 21 phones belonging to high-ranking officials. Five of these phones allegedly belong to the same personnel whose records were requested in the Coinbase case. The SEC reportedly notified the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration of the erased devices in July 2025.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong linked this development to allegations that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation covered up some evidence during the 2023 banking crisis.
Armstrong said in a statement via
*This does not constitute investment advice.