Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield has filed a lawsuit against Coinbase, accusing the exchange of violated state securities laws by listing XRP, SOL, ADA and other digital assets without registering them as securities.
The lawsuit, announced on April 18, is part of an effort by Oregon to take action in an area that federal agencies, under the Trump administration, seemed to avoid.
The Oregon Department of Justice explained that “States must fill the enforcement vacuum being left by federal regulators who are abandoning these cases under Trump administration.”
The lawsuit specifically targets a variety of cryptocurrencies, including XRP, Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), Aave (AAVE), Avalanche (AVAX), Uniswap (UNI), and Near Protocol (NEAR). These assets were made available for trading on Coinbase’s platform and Coinbase Prime, according to the state’s complaint.
Oregon’s Department of Justice claims that by offering these digital assets, Coinbase treated them as securities without properly registering them. Coinbase has yet to comment on the specific allegations, but the company has expressed frustration over the case.
In a tweet on April 21, Coinbase’s chief legal officer Paul Grewal criticized the lawsuit, suggesting it would create further uncertainty.
Justin Slaughter, a VP of regulatory affair at Paradigm, a crypto investment firm, labeled the lawsuit as a “kitchen sink lawsuit” due to the wide range of assets it targets. Slaughter also pointed out that the complaint did not explain why some assets, like wrapped Terra’s token (wLUNA), were included while others, like the original LUNA token, were not.
Legal professionals have weighed in on how this case could impact things. Yarden Noy, a partner at DLT Law, noted that if the court rules these assets as securities, it could create more confusion rather than provide clarity. He said that such a ruling would not set a binding precedent in other cases, not even within Oregon. Noy also highlighted that the lawsuit seems to overlook prior legal decisions, such as the Ripple case, which did not lead to any immediate changes for other tokens.
Meanwhile, Ripple Labs, the company behind XRP, has been engaged in a long-running legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC sued Ripple in late 2020, claiming that XRP was part of a $1.3 billion unregistered offering of securities.
The SEC closed the case in March of 2025, but uncertainty remains regarding XRP. The lawsuit by Oregon complicates the situation further as state officials move in where the federal agencies receded.
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