Online Edition '25

Consecutive

2025

The now-dismissed case against Coinbase is a symptom of a dynamic regulatory environment where rules for cryptocurrency trading are uncertain. The hallmark uncertainty within the cryptocurrency industry creates a fertile ground for evaluating equitable estoppel claims, where companies are forced to rely on inconsistent messages and unsettled policy to their detriment.

Indeed, Coinbase raised an equitable estoppel defense in its case against the SEC. Coinbase argued that it relied on the SEC’s representations that Coinbase was not violating securities law. The facts of Coinbase’s case could lay the groundwork for future cases to push the traditionally strict boundaries of equitable estoppel against government entities.

The purpose of this comment is to evaluate the strength of Coinbase’s equitable estoppel claims. Given the case’s dismissal, equitable estoppel is no longer relevant to Coinbase. But by evaluating the strength of the doctrine against this case, future cryptocurrency firms may be able to use its lessons as a defense should the policies shift against cryptocurrency firms again.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has begun to significantly impact many sectors of the economy and everyday life. As generative AI models improve at unimaginable rates, AI will become continually integrated into our daily lives. This will undoubtedly involve integrating AI tools into the technology that millions of people use daily, including PCs, phones, digital watches, and televisions—technology that many people cannot live without. Indeed, some companies are already beginning to do so. Seems great, right? Maybe so, but only time will tell how effective the integration of AI into hardware will be.

The touchstone of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) new rule on climate-related disclosures, The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors (the “Rule”), is materiality. As Cyndy Posner pointed out, there are over 1,000 references to material or materiality in the Rule. Such an approach must have pleased those commentators who feared the Rule would result in public companies being burdened with providing costly disclosures of non-material information and investors being overwhelmed with information they do not need or want.

When you enter a company’s website, perhaps to buy a product, it is common to receive a pop-up message that asks you to enter your email address to receive promotional materials. The options presented to you in this pop-up may read something akin to “I like to stay informed,” and “I like to be left out.” However, if the website is attempting to make you feel bad about declining to provide your personal information, then you may have experienced a dark pattern.

A recurring joke in the TV series Arrested Development is that a real estate mogul beset by hard financial times refrains to his son, “there’s always money in the [family-owned] banana stand.” Every time he does, the son—who has taken over the family real estate empire—expresses exasperation, as a boardwalk shop selling frozen bananas is obviously no cure for the family’s financial woes. In an act of defiance, the son eventually burns the banana stand down. Enraged, the real estate mogul explains that there was literally $250,000 in cash lining its walls. The stockholder franchise is Delaware’s banana stand.

The issue of Bitcoin exchange-traded products (ETPs) is not new, but it has only recently surged into the public consciousness with the SEC’s reluctant approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in January 2024. However, the general discourse surrounding these novel financial products is mixed: to some, they pose a threat to market stability and open a door for hefty investor losses; to others, they represent a crucial step in the greater legitimization of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as viable assets.