Oregon attorney general sues Coinbase months after SEC drops case

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield filed a securities enforcement action against cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, echoing federal charges that were brought under the Biden administration but dropped earlier this year.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission dropped its case against Coinbase in February. In 2023, the agency charged the exchange with operating as an unregistered broker, exchange and clearing agency and claimed its staking-as-a-service program was also improperly registered.

"Oregon’s holdout campaign is obstruction for the sake of obstruction," Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal said in a blog  post on Friday . "It is a desperate scheme that does nothing to move the crypto conversation forward, and in fact takes us a giant leap backwards from hard-won progress."

Oregon's lawsuit says Coinbase "encouraged and helped the sale of unregistered cryptocurrencies to people in Oregon" and said those assets were at risk to pump-and-dump schemes and fraud. 

“After building trust with Oregon consumers, Coinbase sold high risk investments without them being properly vetted to protect consumers,” Rayfield said in a statement . “Oregonians lost money, and we believe Coinbase should be held accountable and take steps to protect consumers.”

Since President Donald Trump took office, the SEC has taken a dramatically different approach to crypto compared to the Biden-era commission led by Gary Gensler. Gensler had argued that most cryptocurrencies are securities and pushed platforms like Coinbase to register with the agency.

In recent months, the SEC has dropped investigations into several crypto firms, including OpenSea, Kraken, Consensys and Uniswap.

Rayfield mentioned the SEC's move to drop its lawsuit against Coinbase but said it is up to states to now "fill the enforcement vacuum being left by federal regulators who are giving up under the new administration and abandoning these important cases. "

Meanwhile, lawmakers in Washington are moving quickly to pass legislation to regulate stablecoins and the broader crypto industry. House and Senate committees have advanced bills with bipartisan support, and Trump has said he wants legislation on his desk by August.

"Bipartisan momentum has never been stronger to pass comprehensive federal legislation for digital assets—legislation that would enable domestic crypto businesses to thrive while preventing rogue state governments from bringing politically motivated actions against crypto firms," Grewal said on Friday. "Yet instead of waiting for Democrats and Republicans in Congress to enact clear rules of the road, Oregon has taken it upon itself to try to regulate a worldwide industry through enforcement."

Update: April 18, 3:35 p.m. UTC to update the story and the headline to reflect that the lawsuit was later filed