Coinbase Fights IRS Data Grab, Stock Drops to 95th in Trading Volume

On April 30, 2025, Coinbase Global (COIN) experienced a decline of 1.57%, with a trading volume of $911 million, ranking 95th in the day's stock market activity.

Coinbase has taken a significant legal step by filing an amicus brief with the US Supreme Court. This brief supports a constitutional challenge to the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) broad collection of cryptocurrency user data, arguing that it violates Fourth Amendment protections. The filing opposes an IRS John Doe summons that compelled the disclosure of detailed financial and identity records for over 14,000 customers without individualized suspicion. Coinbase's chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, emphasized the importance of privacy protections, stating that the third-party doctrine, which considers individuals to forfeit their reasonable expectation of privacy when they voluntarily disclose information to third parties, should not apply to digital financial data.

Coinbase's legal efforts to block the summons and its refusal to comply voluntarily highlight the company's stance against bulk data collection without cause. The brief argues that the IRS’s actions could lead to unchecked, indefinite surveillance of users’ crypto transactions, undermining the privacy model of pseudonymized crypto transactions. The company calls on the Supreme Court to reinforce limitations outlined in Carpenter v. United States, which restricted warrantless access to cell phone location data, and to clarify that bulk acquisition of sensitive personal and financial data from crypto service providers must comply with constitutional standards.