The case stems from the US Internal Revenue Service’s attempt to obtain Coinbase users’ transaction data in 2016.
US-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has filed an amicus brief in the country’s Supreme Court in support of a taxpayer fighting the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) gaining access to his data from a digital asset platform.
In an April 30 filing in the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), lawyers for Coinbase argued that a First Circuit Court of Appeals decision set a “dangerous precedent” for crypto users, potentially allowing the government to “trace users’ every crypto transaction in the past and monitor every crypto transaction in the future.” The appeal to the Supreme Court stemmed from petitioner James Harper, a Coinbase user, who took legal action against the IRS after the crypto exchange was forced to turn over transaction data to the government using a sweeping “John Doe” summons in 2017.
“This case directly affects Coinbase’s interest in protecting the privacy rights of its users and in the correct application of this Court’s doctrine on constitutional guarantees against warrantless government demands for third-party service providers to surrender users’ personal information,” the brief reads.
