Coinbase walks away with Supreme Court victory in arbitration case

Paul Grewal tweeted that Coinbase is ‘grateful’ for the Supreme Court’s decision

article-image

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong | Source: TechCrunch "775208327GB00107_TechCrunch" (CC license)

share

The Supreme Court sided with Coinbase in a 5-4 ruling that reinforces arbitration. 

The case was argued back in March, and is part of the October 2022-2023 Supreme Court term. In March, the Justices were divided on the case.

Justice Kavanaugh, who delivered the opinion, said, “When a federal district court denies a motion to compel arbitration, the losing party has a statutory right to an interlocutory appeal.”

Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, tweeted that Coinbase is “grateful to the Supreme Court of its careful review. Another example of why I believe in the American court system.”

“The rule of law is sometimes slow, and at times disappointing. But it remains our last, best hope in an imperfect democracy,” he continued.

Loading Tweet..

Coinbase v. Bielski sought to allow Coinbase to halt customer lawsuits while the crypto company moved them out of the court and into private arbitration. 

It stems from a class action suit filed by Bielski, on behalf of Coinbase users, which alleges that Coinbase “failed to replace funds fraudulently taken from the users’ accounts.”

According to the original plaintiff, a scammer pretending to be a PayPal representative accessed his Coinbase account and drained it of roughly $31,000. However, Coinbase’s customer service caused a “nightmare” because the bots did not have the responses or ability to help the situation. 

The Supreme Court case is not the only legal battle Coinbase currently faces. It has two open cases with the SEC — one is Coinbase v. SEC which seeks to force the SEC to provide clear regulations for the crypto industry. Then there’s the SEC v. Coinbase, in which the regulatory agency accuses Coinbase of operating an unregistered exchange and listing and selling unregistered securities.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates.png

Research

USDai is a synthetic dollar fully backed by tokenized three‑month T-bills custodied by M^0. When holders stake USDai in an ERC-4626 vault, they mint sUSDai, which finances short-term, amortizing loans secured by NVIDIA-class GPUs and servers.

article-image

The House on Thursday passed the CLARITY Act, a landmark cryptocurrency market structure bill

article-image

Interchain Labs will focus on sovereign L1s and institutional demand, abandoning plans for smart contracts on the Cosmos Hub

article-image

Also, only three tokens have outperformed bitcoin so far this year: XMR, HYPE and SKY

article-image

The fund group has submitted proposals in recent months for other funds that would hold litecoin, solana, XRP, HBAR, Sui and others

article-image

Momentum’s back — BTC leads, risk assets follow

article-image

Ondo Finance’s acquisition of blockchain development company Strangelove follows its buy of Oasis Pro