Just when it seemed like XRP had caught a legal break, it’s back under scrutiny—this time in a new lawsuit from the state of Oregon.
On April 22, Oregon’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against Coinbase, accusing the exchange of offering and trading unregistered securities. The filing lists over 30 crypto assets, including big names like XRP, Cardano, Solana, Aave, and Uniswap.
This move reignites the long-running debate over whether certain cryptocurrencies should be treated as securities under U.S. law. That’s especially surprising in XRP’s case, since Ripple—the company behind XRP—recently settled with the SEC after a lengthy legal battle over the same issue.
Justin Slaughter, VP of regulatory affairs at Paradigm, shared a key section of the lawsuit on X (formerly Twitter), showing that Oregon claims Coinbase allowed trading of these assets “as investment contracts,” which makes them securities under the law. That would mean Coinbase should have registered them with state regulators—something the lawsuit says it failed to do.
Coinbase’s chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, didn’t hold back. He called the case a “copycat lawsuit,” saying it could seriously slow down progress on national crypto legislation. He also warned that actions like this from individual states could create more confusion just as Congress is finally making strides toward clearer rules for the industry.
While the SEC dropped its own case against Coinbase earlier this year, this fresh legal fight shows that crypto regulation in the U.S. is still very much in flux—and that old questions around XRP and other tokens are far from settled.
