It’s been two weeks since Coinbase disclosed its data breach, and so far we’re up to:
• 8 customer class actions against Coinbase
• 1 shareholder class action against Coinbase
• 1 customer class action against TaskUs, a contractor the plaintiffs allege was responsible for the breach.
Crypto industry-funded polls have claimed that as much as 28% of American adults currently owned crypto in 2024. Coinbase in particular loves to throw around claims of 20%.
Federal data has just come out putting the figure at... 8%.
In the Who Cares Era, the most radical thing you can do is care.
Given the recent data breach and Coinbase’s user agreement that aims to force customers into arbitration rather than individual or class action lawsuits, it’s interesting to read the outcome of a recent arbitration case against Coinbase.
You can’t crush ideas by suppressing them. You can only crush them by ignoring them. By refusing to think, refusing to change.
welcome to the future, now your error-prone software can call the cops
A Coinbase data breach filing with the Maine Attorney General finally gives us some more detail than Coinbase’s vague “less than 1% of monthly transacting users”. 69,461 people were affected, and Coinbase says the data breach occurred on December 26, 2024.
It took them almost five months between the incident and the incident disclosure, although the company has since admitted it knew customer support agents were suspiciously accessing customer data as far back as January.
The SEC has just filed a lawsuit against Unicoin, its CEO, and promoters, accusing them of “a massive securities offering fraud” amounting to more than $100 million. The SEC had reportedly previously tried to negotiate a settlement, but Unicoin refused it.
The SEC warned Unicoin of impending civil charges in December 2024, after the company decided after Trump’s election that they would breach a standstill agreement they’d entered with the agency.
Adam Levitin on the GENIUS Act:
[I]n regard to cash deposits, the stablecoin investors will have priority over the claims of ma-and-pa for their bank deposits (and thus over the FDIC's subrogation claim when it pays ma-and-pa).
Yes, you read that correctly: Congress is about to put the claims of stablecoin investors ahead of ma and pa's bank deposits. That's just stunning. Now ma-and-pa's deposits are FDIC insured, so they'll be alright, but it means the FDIC's Deposit Insurance Fund is footing the bill. In other words, the GENIUS Act is subsidizing stablecoin issuance on the back of bank deposits. By subordinating the FDIC's subrogation claim in a bank insolvency to the claims of stablecoin investors, the GENIUS Act is effectively letting FDIC insurance leak out to cover uninsured stablecoins, without any insurance premiums paid.
Coinbase was aware that support reps were suspiciously accessing customer data when its CEO tweeted that the CFPB should be "deleted". Among other things, the CFPB has pursued legal action against financial companies that failed to secure sensitive customer data.
![9. On December 17, 2024, Arbitrator Kruze issued an Order Granting Dispositive Motion as to all of Mr. Spilker’s claims. Ex. A at 6 (“Respondent’s Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED. Claimant’s claims against Coinbase are dismissed.”). 10. The Final Award holds: a. Claimant’s EFTA cause of action is time-barred because the “one-year limitations period begins when the first unauthorized transfer occurs, not upon discovery by the consumer, and not when the consumer notifies the defendant of the unauthorized transfer.” Id. at 3, applying 15 U.S.C. §1693m(g) and Wike v. Vertrue, Inc., 566 F.3d 590,593 (6th Cir. 2009). b. “The undisputed facts show that a third party, not Coinbase, caused Claimant’s damages” and that “Claimant’s damages were the result of an intervening and superseding cause: the actions of a third-party scammer. Coinbase, as a matter of law, cannot be held liable for Claimant’s damages.” Ex. A at 4, citing May v. Google, LLC, No. 24-CV-01314- BLF, 2024 WL 4681604, at *10 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 4, 2024). c. The parties’ contract forecloses Mr. Spilker’s causes of action for breach of contract, negligence and tort claims, and claims under Idaho and Oregon law. Ex. A at 5. d. Pursuant to Melchoir v. New Line Prods., Inc., 106 Cal. App. 4th 779, 793 (2003), “Claimant’s cause of action for unjust enrichment fails because ‘there is no [such thing as a] cause of action in California for unjust enrichment.’” Ex. A at 5. e. Mr. Spilker’s CLRA claim fails “as courts have consistently held that the CLRA does not apply to cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase”. Id. at 6, citing various cases.](https://storage.mollywhite.net/micro/0bbcc42846cc232283eb_Screenshot-2025-05-27-at-1.04.40---PM.png)
![As the SEC has dropped the majority of its ongoing lawsuits and investigations into cryptocurrency firms, most recently the Immutable web3 gaming company, a few firms seem to be getting a little nervous. Unicoin, a firm that announced shortly after Trump’s election that they would breach the 2024 “standstill” agreement they had reached with the SEC [I72] (and then did so), is now writing letters to the agency asking why their case has yet to be dropped. “We thought the war was over, and we said to the SEC, ‘Hey, we’re resuming our activity,’” explained Unicoin CEO Alex Konanykhin. Like some other industry executives, Konanykhin has gone beyond merely asking for an end to the enforcement case, and in his letter seeks retribution against the SEC employee who led the investigation into his company.14](https://storage.mollywhite.net/micro/f8b26d94775ddfc5a65c_Screenshot-2025-05-21-at-1.52.33---PM.png)