Coinbase has renewed its public campaign to restore crypto staking access across the United States, arguing that state-level restrictions are still preventing users in several jurisdictions from earning rewards. While the company says the broader regulatory climate has improved following dismissals by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and several states, it maintains that residents in four states continue to face barriers that have already resulted in significant lost income.
In a post published on X, Coinbase said crypto owners in California, New Jersey, Maryland, and Wisconsin have missed out on an estimated more than $90 million in staking rewards since June 2023. The company framed the issue as both a consumer access problem and a broader policy dispute over whether Americans should be allowed to participate in blockchain networks through regulated staking services.
Breakdown of the Claimed Reward Losses
Coinbase provided a state-by-state estimate of the foregone rewards. According to the company, users in California account for the largest share, with nearly $71 million in missed staking rewards. Users in New Jersey have allegedly lost around $12 million, while those in Maryland have missed roughly $5 million. In Wisconsin, the estimated loss stands at about $3 million.
The company said these totals have continued to rise as the restrictions remain in place. Coinbase also stressed that no customers have lost staked assets through its platform, seeking to distinguish the current legal dispute from concerns related to custody failure, loss of funds, or platform solvency. In Coinbase’s framing, the main damage has been the inability of users in certain states to access yield opportunities available elsewhere in the country.
Regulatory Pressure Has Eased, but Not Everywhere
Coinbase’s latest statement comes after a series of legal and regulatory developments that appear to have shifted momentum in favor of staking access. The company said that the SEC and more than 40 U.S. states now allow Coinbase users to stake crypto, marking a notable change from the more aggressive posture seen earlier in the enforcement cycle.
Five states — Vermont, South Carolina, Kentucky, Illinois, and Alabama — have officially withdrawn staking-related lawsuits against Coinbase. The most recent move came from the Alabama Securities Commission, which dismissed its case on April 23. Coinbase highlighted Alabama’s explanation that the SEC and the cryptocurrency industry are working collaboratively toward clearer regulatory standards, a sign that some state authorities may now prefer policy development over courtroom confrontation.
This followed the SEC’s own decision in February to dismiss its federal lawsuit against Coinbase, a development that many in the industry viewed as a major turning point. Although the article does not suggest that legal uncertainty has disappeared, the sequence of dismissals indicates that regulators in some parts of the country are reassessing prior objections to staking services offered by centralized exchanges.
Why Staking Remains a Key Policy Issue
For Coinbase, staking is not just a product line but a strategic part of its broader argument about how crypto networks should function in the United States. The company has repeatedly said staking helps support blockchain security, facilitates network participation, and gives digital asset holders a way to earn protocol-based rewards rather than leaving tokens idle.
By casting the issue in these terms, Coinbase is trying to move the debate beyond corporate business interests and toward user rights and network infrastructure. Its message is that blocking access to staking does not simply constrain a single exchange; it limits how individuals engage with proof-of-stake ecosystems and reduces the utility of assets they already own.
The company’s public messaging also suggests it sees the current moment as an opportunity. With federal pressure easing and several states backing away from litigation, Coinbase appears intent on isolating the remaining jurisdictions that still oppose or restrict access. By quantifying the missed rewards, the exchange is likely seeking to increase political and public pressure on those states to revisit their positions.
Four States Remain the Main Holdouts
Despite the broader improvement in regulatory conditions, Coinbase said users in the four remaining states still cannot fully access staking through its platform. That leaves California, New Jersey, Maryland, and Wisconsin as the central battlegrounds in the company’s campaign.
California stands out not only because it remains on the list, but because the size of its affected user base appears to make it by far the biggest contributor to the estimated losses. With nearly $71 million in missed rewards attributed to the state alone, any policy shift there would have an outsized impact on Coinbase customers nationwide. By contrast, the estimated losses in Wisconsin and Maryland are smaller in absolute terms, but Coinbase is using all four states to underscore what it sees as uneven treatment of crypto users across the country.
The figures cited by Coinbase do not indicate that users would have earned these rewards with certainty under all market conditions, but they do represent the company’s estimate of what customers have been unable to access because of the restrictions. As such, the numbers serve both as a measure of economic impact and a lobbying tool in an ongoing regulatory dispute.
Coinbase Signals It Will Keep Fighting
Coinbase’s message was unequivocal: it does not plan to stop pushing until staking access is restored nationwide. The company said it will continue fighting to “fully restore” staking rights, positioning the issue as part of a larger effort to defend crypto participation in the United States.
That stance reflects a broader pattern in the exchange’s regulatory strategy. Rather than treating each lawsuit or administrative challenge as an isolated event, Coinbase is tying them together into a national narrative about access, innovation, and consistency in rulemaking. The more states that reverse course, the stronger the company’s argument becomes that the remaining restrictions are out of step with the emerging consensus.
For now, the practical takeaway is straightforward: while many Coinbase users across the U.S. can stake their crypto, residents in four states remain excluded, and the company says the cost of that exclusion has already surpassed $90 million. Whether that figure grows further will depend on how quickly those states reassess their positions in light of the recent regulatory retreat elsewhere.