- Oregon has filed a lawsuit against Coinbase for selling digital assets including XRP, without properly registering as a security.
- The case covers an extensive list of altcoins.
- Coinbase has vowed to fight the case as it derailed the efforts that aimed at creating national regulatory policies on cryptocurrencies.
Oregon’s Attorney General Dan Rayfield has filed a lawsuit against Coinbase, alleging that the exchange contravenes state laws on securities. In a lawsuit filed on April 18th, the law firm claimed that Coinbase has facilitated the sale of cryptocurrencies, including XRP, AAVE, and UNI, without proper disclosure and labeling them as unregistered securities.
According to the Oregon Department of Justice, the complaint is an attempt to target a legal gap that was left when federal agencies were demobilized during the Trump presidency. The state claims that the federal authority no longer regulates the market and that states should protect investors.
Coinbase’s legal chief, Paul Grewal, described the legal action in a tweet as a reckless attempt to perform prior federal enforcement in a civil capacity. He threatened that such actions could jeopardize the progress of bipartisan work in the U.S. Congress to create a national crypto legislation.
Broad Token List Fuels Industry Uncertainty
The 171-page lawsuit covers a long list of tokens that are already listed on Coinbase, including Avalanche (AVAX), Near Protocol (NEAR), Uniswap (UNI), and the wrapped version of Terra’s token, wLUNA. More notably, LUNA itself was excluded from the sample, raising questions about the criteria used for selection.
Justin Slaughter, the vice president of regulatory affairs at Paradigm, said this was a classic “kitchen sink lawsuit” based on the number of assets it included. If a court demands these tokens to be considered securities, it may create more legal uncertainty even though it does not establish a binding legal precedent within the jurisdiction of Oregon.
According to DLT Law partner Yarden Noy, such a decision would be relatively restricted in its application, but regulators or future claimants could cite it. He noted that it seems that the complaint ignores new legal victories achieved in a Ripple case where a federal judge stated that XRP was not always being sold as securities.
Ripple’s Legal History Adds Weight to the Debate
Ripple, the company behind XRP, previously faced charges with the SEC for a $1.3 billion security offering. This legal structure was left by the SEC when it dropped another case in March 2025.
Coinbase has been quite cautious with compliance recently, including XRP futures to its derivatives platform. That position is now under threat from the Oregon lawsuit, reigniting regulatory ambiguity for XRP and such tokens.
The complaint also points to the lack of adequate “robust disclosures of material information,” which is mandatory under the Oregon securities laws. It alleges that the platform offered crypto assets as investment contracts while not being able to fulfill registration requirements.
Rayfield’s legal decision is in line with a trend where state attorneys general are getting more involved in crypto regulation. Also in February, the SEC dismissed its own case against Coinbase, further deepening the divide at the federal level.
