The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has agreed to pay $150,000 and produce remaining responsive documents to settle a federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning its investigations into Ethereum, according to a joint status report filed on July 22.

History Associates Inc. and the SEC jointly asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to dismiss the case after reaching the settlement. Under the agreement, the agency will produce all outstanding documents and pay the flat fee to cover the plaintiff's legal costs. FOIA allows the public to request records from federal agencies, and disputes over search scope, exemptions, or missing records can be challenged in federal court.

History Associates, a firm specializing in professional historical research, writing, and archival services for government agencies, filed the lawsuit in June 2024. The firm had been working on behalf of Coinbase, having submitted three public records requests the prior year. Those requests sought documents related to SEC investigations into Zachary Coburn and Enigma MPC, as well as records detailing how Ethereum transitioned from a proof-of-work blockchain to a proof-of-stake network.

Ethereum's migration, commonly known as the Merge, was a major technical change for one of the largest public blockchains and has been closely watched by the digital asset industry because it affected how the network validates transactions. The records sought in the lawsuit therefore centered on how the SEC evaluated Ethereum-related issues during a period of heightened regulatory scrutiny of crypto markets.

The litigation compelled the SEC to hand over thousands of documents. The court explicitly ordered the agency to prioritize all records and communications sent, received, or evaluated by then-Chair Gary Gensler regarding Ethereum's migration.

The document dispute stalled in September 2025 when the SEC's Inspector General reported that the agency had accidentally deleted Gary Gensler's text messages from October 2022 through September 2023. Subsequent court updates revealed that the agency had wiped 21 phones belonging to senior officials, five of which belonged to staff members specifically named in the Coinbase case. The SEC notified the National Archives about the deleted phones in July 2025.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong connected the outcome to a separate FDIC case involving alleged suppression of evidence during the 2023 banking crisis.

"The Gensler SEC deleted texts at the height of the anti-crypto campaign, FDIC buried evidence — it was all uncovered after we fought to expose the truth," Armstrong wrote in a post on X. "This is not only for us, but for every American and every American company expecting transparency and accountability from the government."

The settlement brings more than two years of litigation over the document requests to a close. Once the SEC completes production of the remaining records, the case will be formally dismissed.