Coinbase says New Jersey plans to lift 3-year staking order

Existing New Jersey stake

The New Jersey regulator is preparing to rescind the order that blocked Coinbase's staking services for three years. The company revealed in its latest quarterly report that the New Jersey Securities Regulation Authority announced its intention to cancel the enforcement order and cease operations. This move comes after a long period of restrictions. Although the official stamp of rescission has not yet been applied, the signal sent on October 29 indicates a major shift in the dispute over the legal status of crypto staking.

In official documents, Coinbase details that during the three years of restrictions, New Jersey users could continue to receive rewards generated by balances already placed in staking, although they were not allowed to add new funds or reinvest gains. This nuance is crucial: although access to new investments was blocked, the economic benefit for existing accounts remained active. Currently, the platform's eligibility page still lists New Jersey among the states with limitations, without announcing a confirmed date for the full reopening of the service for residents of that state.

History of the conflict

The conflict dates back to June 6, 2023, when the New Jersey Securities Regulation Office issued an initial order against Coinbase Global and Coinbase Inc. The authority argued that the staking products offered by the company required registration under the state's securities law. In the official document, staking was described as an engagement of crypto assets to support the blockchain network, where validators process transactions and receive protocol rewards for their participation.

Coinbase has consistently contested the claim that its staking services constitute securities. In a July 2023 statement, the company specified that California, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Wisconsin had asked it to prevent retail customers from staking new activities while proceedings were ongoing. During that period, already-staked funds remained unused. Coinbase stated that it would comply with preliminary orders while defending its services in court. The quarterly report records agreements with those four states in July 2023, followed by a similar agreement with Maryland in October of the same year.

A significant development occurred in the spring of 2025, when five states – Alabama, Kentucky, Illinois, South Carolina, and Vermont – withdrew their actions against Coinbase. Company documentation shows that those regulators abandoned, cancelled, withdrew, or dropped their actions between March and April 2025. Earlier, in April 2025, Alabama withdrew its enforcement action, leaving five states that continued to pursue staking-related proceedings at that time.

Recent developments

In an April 2025 statement, Ryan VanGrack, writing for Coinbase, urged the remaining states to conclude their cases. He argued that the restrictions targeted only Coinbase, while residents could access staking through other providers. At that time, the company estimated that customers in California, New Jersey, Maryland, and Wisconsin had missed out on over $90 million in rewards. This figure represented the company's estimate for the four states, without a separate breakdown for New Jersey.

In October 2025, Coinbase announced a separate expansion into neighboring New York on October 8, 2025, allowing residents to stake ETH, SOL, and other supported assets through its platform. In that announcement, the exchange placed the missed rewards at over $130 million across the four restricted states. This updated figure reflects the accumulation of losses over the entire dispute period.