The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has agreed to pay $150,000 in legal fees to settle Coinbase’s lawsuit over obtaining internal records from the agency at the height of the SEC’s crackdown on cryptocurrencies under Biden.

Agreement, filed on Wednesday ends a two-year lawsuit between the SEC and Coinbase in which the cryptocurrency exchange sought internal documents from the regulator to uncover “crypto by enforcement” evidence. A 2025 internal report revealed that the SEC removed former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s nearly year-old texts because of “avoidable” errors.

“The agency tasked with overseeing corporate recordkeeping somehow lost stacks of its own text messages between Mr. Gensler and other officials during the most intense period of the anti-crypto campaign,” Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, said in the article published by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, adding that the SEC would pay a $150,000 “reward” and had established its records retention rules.

The settlement marks another legal victory for Coinbase under the Trump administration. The SEC, under Paul Atkins, has taken a more crypto-friendly approach and in 2025 dropped several high-profile enforcement actions against crypto companies, including Coinbase.

Related: Coinbase’s chief legal officer will transition to an advisory role on July 31

In February, Coinbase reached approx settlement with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, with the FDIC agreeing to pay $188,440 in legal fees and reviewing aspects of its transparency practices after a federal court found it violated the Freedom of Information Act.

“Years of litigation were worth it. We were able to uncover dozens of crypto ‘pause letters’ – irrefutable evidence of OCP2.0 and a coordinated effort to sideline the industry,” Grewal said in a February X post.

Grewal joins from the position of legal director

Paul Grewal, who has served as Coinbase’s chief legal officer since 2020, will transition to an advisory role at the exchange effective July 31, and Coinbase’s vice presidents of legal Molly Abraham and Ryan VanGrack will become general counsel and vice president, respectively.

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