coindesk.com
Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal is leaving the company after its high-profile, years-long legal fight with U.S. regulators, and the U.S. exchange also announced further changes to its senior leadership.
Grewal is departing to work at a startup, according to a Thursday announcement from Coinbase. Molly Abraham will now lead the company's legal team as general counsel, and Ryan Van Grack will become vice chairman, in what's anticipated to be a broader and more public-facing role.
"Leading Coinbase's legal team through the biggest fight of our industry has been the single greatest achievement of my six-year tenure," Grewal said in a statement. "Our legal wins helped ensure crypto not only had a future in this country, but could flourish."
His statement continued on to say he would continue as an adviser to Coinbase, and would work on Coinbase's trust charter work through the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Abraham has been at Coinbase since March 2021, running multiple legal teams as the company's vice president of legal. Prior to that, she was general counsel at an electric flying car startup, according to her LinkedIn.
Van Grack, a former general counsel at Citadel Securities, had led Coinbase's widespread litigation work.
Coinbase's biggest legal fight came from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which sued the company in 2023, alleging it was operating as an unregistered broker, clearinghouse and exchange for securities. The SEC, helmed at the time by former Chair Gary Gensler, had filed similar suits against a number of exchanges.
The regulator dropped the suit after President Donald Trump retook office.
The exchange also fought in court to view internal SEC documents about its approach to regulating crypto, as well as a petition to force the SEC to establish crypto rules during Grewal's tenure.