Paul Grewal, the legal architect behind Coinbase’s defense against the SEC, is leaving the company. Grewal notified Coinbase of his resignation on July 8, 2026, with his departure set for July 31.
The timing is hard to ignore. Grewal is walking away after resolving the very lawsuit that defined his tenure, the SEC enforcement action filed against Coinbase in June 2023 that hung over the company like a storm cloud for years.
The Grewal era at Coinbase
Grewal joined Coinbase in July 2020, arriving from Meta (then still Facebook) where he served as VP and Deputy General Counsel. He walked into a company that was about to go public and enter what would become the most turbulent regulatory period in crypto’s short history.
The big test came in June 2023 when the SEC sued Coinbase, alleging the exchange operated as an unregistered securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency. Under Grewal’s watch, Coinbase didn’t just survive the fight, it resolved it.
