| This story is INCREDIBLY interesting on a lot of levels. Here's one level: Paul Grewal, the 'head lawyer' referred to in the underlying articles, is a former United States federal (magistrate) judge. He was the judge who oversaw part of the Apple v. Samsung patent cases, some of the biggest technology cases litigated in history. In other words, he's basically as respected in the legal community as you can possibly imagine, and he made the controversial move of exiting the judiciary to go back into private practice. And now he's clashing with an administrative agency in a public, confident, perhaps brazen way. Coinbase essentially hired the absolute best person to challenge the government on this point. It's sort of like wanting to hire a good basketball coach and hiring Michael Jordan, or something. It's very interesting to watch from the sidelines, because not only is the legality of crypto at stake, but this guy's amazing career feels at stake, too, like he's betting his name on this. |
(Also for full clarity magistrate judge is the lowest level in the federal system. Not that that isn't impressive, though)