In a recent development, Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer, Paul Grewal, announced that a judge has ordered the FDIC to release the Operation Chokepoint 2.0 pause letters following Coinbase’s FOIA request. Grewal has commended this as a significant move towards regulatory transparency. The agency has started producing documents in response to Coinbase’s Freedom of Information Act request, showing records related to the “pause letters” sent to banks as part of Operation Chokepoint 2.0.
This came after the lawsuit filed by Coinbase to compel compliance by the FDIC. Coinbase has filed two Freedom of Information Act requests to force US regulators to disclose information about the ongoing crypto crackdown on American banks. The filings go out to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which allegedly instructed banks to cap deposits from crypto firms at 15% of their total deposits.
In October, Grewal stated that these FOIA requests were part of the effort to clarify regulators’ approach to digital assets. The first request is for documents that connect to the FDIC’s cap on banks’ digital asset deposits, while the second one aims to uncover restrictions by various regulators. A second FOIA request sought information about how regulators had responded in the past to such requests.
According to Coinbase, the FDIC unilaterally imposed these deposit caps without allowing a public comment period, which is usually called for by US law. Grewal explained that this FOIA filing is separate from those filed more than a year ago, which were subject to federal lawsuits. In June, Coinbase filed lawsuits against the SEC and FDIC over their failures to respond to FOIA requests, including a 2023 request for documents about the SEC’s positioning on how Ether is classified.
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