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Coinbase hires former Facebook vice president Paul Grewal as its Chief Legal Officer.

The crypto exchange Coinbase has hired the former Facebook Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Paul Grewal as its Chief
The crypto exchange Coinbase has hired the former Facebook Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Paul Grewal as its Chief Legal Officer.

Paul Grewal, a former US magistrate judge in California and Deputy General Counsel for Facebook, will lead the crypto exchange Coinbase’s legal team. The crypto exchange Coinbase announced in its blog that former Facebook vice president Grewal would help “pave the way for the next phase of crypto awareness and adoption. The new Chief Legal Officer will also lead the legal team as Coinbase partners with financial services regulators, develop and launch new products and services.

“Grewal oversaw more than a thousand cases during his five years as a judge.”

The crypto exchange Coinbase noted that Paul Grewal oversaw more than a thousand cases during his five years as a judge, and played key roles” in Apple v. Samsung and Oracle v. Google, two pivotal legal cases on technology. The crypto exchange announced the news appointment two months after its former chief legal counsel, Brian P. Brooks, left the exchange after two years. Brooks is now the head of the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a bureau within the Treasury Department. It’s unclear whether this latest appointment was influenced by a recent class-action lawsuit against Coinbase’s “data plumber,” Plaid, filed following Brooks’ departure.

Coinbase users withdrew $200 million worth BTC over privacy concerns.

After the crypto trading platform, Coinbase offered to license its analytics platform to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the users of exchange removed over $200 million worth of Bitcoins. However, the crypto exchange claimed that it would only be providing the IRS and DEA with streamlined access to publicly available data. These agencies would not have access to any internal or customer data, the exchange further claimed. Coinbase’s government offer has caused many of its customers to withdraw their funds, and stop using the exchange, and publicly denounce the exchange with the hashtag BoycottCoinbase on social media. The move by Coinbase was criticized by many in the crypto community.

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