Activity tagged "Coinbase"

Posted:

Coinbase Chief Legal Officer: the critics who think we’ve bought out the government are refusing to engage with the nuanced and complicated fact that Trump used to be anti-crypto before we started spending hundreds of millions of dollars on politics

“I find those comments misinformed at best, if I’m being generous, and defamatory at worst,” Paul Grewal, chief legal officer at Coinbase, told The Hill of the backlash. Some criticism, Grewal argued, fails to consider Trump was once a critic of crypto and at one point called it a “scam.” Grewal pointed out how Congress moved major legislation in 2023 on market structure, an issue that was met with bipartisan support. The Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act in 2023 received support from 71 Democrats in the House. “The fact of the matter is that President Trump did evolve and transform in his view on crypto, really starting in December 2023,” Grewal said. “In January 2024, we first started to engage with him and his team, but it was against a much more nuanced, complicated and complete history that I think a lot of the critics just don’t want to engage in.”

The Hill

Posted:

As an active federal contractor, Coinbase is prohibited from making political contributions, including to super PACs. This makes $50 million that they have contributed in violation of pay-to-play laws for contractors.

Tweet by Brian Armstrong @brian_armstrong We get the U.S. election results in 6 days, and no matter how you slice it, it will be the most pro-crypto congress ever. But we're not slowing down post-election. Today I'm announcing that @coinbase has committed another $25M to support Fairshake PAC, which they will use leading up to the 2026 midterms to elect pro-crypto candidates. We're also supporting @standwithcrypto in their stretch goal to reach 4m advocates by the 2026 midterms. The crypto voter is already a force to be reckoned with, but it will continue to grow. We're going to keep showing up to protect our customer's rights and help get sensible legislation passed in major markets around the world.

See my reporting on their previous violation, which is being reviewed by the FEC: https://www.citationneeded.news/coinbase-campaign-finance-violation/

Posted:

Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal has responded to the news of the FEC complaint by suggesting I have some shadowy backers funding me.

Tweet thread by Paul Grewal (@iampaulgrewal): Seized crypto assets are not Congressionally appropriated funds, period. There is nothing new in the FEC complaint filed by a self-described crypto critic and Public Citizen’s research director, but it is notable that there is no minimum bar to file such a complaint, and this one – filed by individuals with no election law expertise and funded by who exactly? – appears to amount to a press release by another name. 1/4 @coinbase is proud of its hand-in-glove work with federal law enforcement. We remain committed to playing a trusted role for the U.S. Marshals Service’s cryptocurrency services requirement, which is funded by the sale of assets forfeited to the DOJ’s Assets Forfeiture Fund – not congressionally appropriated tax dollars.

He’s also complained that we accused Coinbase of having partisan bias in who they support, something we did not allege or imply. We single out the donation to the Congressional Leadership Fund and not its Democratic equivalent because only the former happened within the prohibited period.

Tweet thread by Paul Grewal (@iampaulgrewal): Seized crypto assets are not Congressionally appropriated funds, period. There is nothing new in the FEC complaint filed by a self-described crypto critic and Public Citizen’s research director, but it is notable that there is no minimum bar to file such a complaint, and this one – filed by individuals with no election law expertise and funded by who exactly? – appears to amount to a press release by another name. 1/4 @coinbase is proud of its hand-in-glove work with federal law enforcement. We remain committed to playing a trusted role for the U.S. Marshals Service’s cryptocurrency services requirement, which is funded by the sale of assets forfeited to the DOJ’s Assets Forfeiture Fund – not congressionally appropriated tax dollars. 2/4 It’s also worth noting that Coinbase has donated to Dem and GOP super PACs equally with $500K to House and Senate funds for each party, respectively, for 2024. White and Public Citizen appear to want to report a political bias which does not exist. 3/4 Very simply, the world view these researchers espouse in this document is not the law, as much as they wish it was. 4/4

These are the contributions at issue. Those highlighted in yellow were made during the prohibited time period (March 4, 2024–present).

The blue ones are the ones he claims to be upset we didn’t mention. They were made more than two months before the US Marshals published the contract that Coinbase would later apply for and win.

Individual contributions Viewing 11 filtered results for: "coinbase"<br>Contributor name Recipient State Employer Receipt date Amount [begin yellow highlight] COINBASE FAIRSHAKE CA 05/30/2024 $24,999,995.00 COINBASE, INC. COINBASE, INC. INNOVATION PAC (COINBASE INNOVATION PAC) CA 05/03/2024 $100.00 COINBASE CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP FUND CA 03/20/2024 $500,000.00 [end yellow highlight] [begin blue highlight]  COINBASE INC. SENATE LEADERSHIP FUND CA 12/22/2023 $500,000.00 [end blue highlight] COINBASE PROTECT PROGRESS CA 12/22/2023 $1,500,000.00 [begin blue highlight]  COINBASE, INC. SMP CA 12/22/2023 $500,000.00 [end blue highlight]  COINBASE INC DEFEND AMERICAN JOBS CA 12/22/2023 $1,500,000.00 COINBASE, INC. COINBASE, INC. INNOVATION PAC (COINBASE INNOVATION PAC) CA 12/20/2023 $50.01 [begin blue highlight]  COINBASE, INC. HMP CA 12/20/2023 $500,000.00 [end blue highlight] COINBASE FAIRSHAKE CA 12/20/2023 $15,500,000.00 COINBASE FAIRSHAKE CA 11/03/2023 $5,000,000.00

(Note: that third, $100 contribution highlighted in yellow seems to be a permitted contribution made by an individual employee that has just been misattributed to Coinbase in the FEC data).