Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase received three times as many enforcement requests this year than in 2020, according to a new transparency report.
Request data to Coinbase
Nearly half of those orders came from the United States. Germany accounted for another 15% of the 13,079 requests for information, followed by the UK and Spain.
Almost all requests (96%) relate to criminal investigations. The rest were related to civil or administrative matters.
Paul Grewal, chief legal officer at Coinbase, wrote in the report:
“Where necessary, we will try to limit requests that are too broad or vague to provide a more appropriately tailored response, and in some cases we may object to providing any information at all.”
“We also strive to provide anonymized or aggregated data to assist law enforcement and government agencies in their work, where possible, rather than providing individual customer information.”
Voluntary transparency reports on government requests for data are very common among big tech companies these days. Names like Verizon, AT&T, Apple, and Google are familiar with this.
Coinbase’s total, which is up 6% since 2022, pales in comparison to the 127,766 orders sent to Verizon in the first half of this year.
Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken received approximately 3,705 law enforcement requests in 2022. That year, the majority of Kraken data requests came from outside the United States.
In 2023, Coinbase saw a three-fold increase in orders from Ukraine. Meanwhile, requests from government agencies in Australia, Portugal, Romania and Nigeria more than doubled, according to the report.
The company also sent an email to some of its clients yesterday informing them that it may have to share their trading data with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Coinbase received a summons from the regulatory body.
On Thursday afternoon, Coinbase shares were down 4% from yesterday.
