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 the missing messages of former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler.
According to a joint statement filed with the court on July 22, the SEC agreed to pay plaintiff History Associates Inc. $150,000 and to release relevant, previously unreleased documents. Following the settlement, the parties requested the dismissal of the case from the Washington D.C. District Court.
History Associates, which provides historical research, writing, and archival services to public institutions, filed the lawsuit on behalf of Coinbase in June 2024. The company had filed three separate public registration requests with the SEC a year earlier.
The requests sought the disclosure of documents relating to the SEC’s investigations into Zachary Coburn and Enigma MPC, as well as internal records connected to Ethereum’s transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake systems.
The legal process prompted the SEC to hand over thousands of documents. The court also ruled that the agency should give priority to all records and correspondence sent, received, or evaluated by Gary Gensler regarding Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake.
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.
Subsequent court records revealed that the SEC erased 21 phones belonging to high-ranking officials. Five of these phones reportedly belonged to the same personnel whose records were requested in the Coinbase case. The SEC reportedly notified the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration about the erased devices in July 2025.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong linked the development to allegations that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation concealed certain evidence during the 2023 banking crisis.
Armstrong stated in a statement via X, “The SEC under Gensler deleted messages at the height of the anti-crypto campaign, and the FDIC concealed evidence. All of this came to light after we fought to uncover the truth.”
