According to The Wall Street Journal, Coinbase sued the U.S. government’s “Operation Choke Point 2.0” and won. The SEC was found liable for damages of $150k after it deleted large volumes of text messages belonging to former officials including then-chair Gary Gensler through an “automatic deletion” mechanism. This action had previously been carried out by pressuring banks to cut off business ties with legitimate crypto industry players and their customers. Maxine Waters, the top Democratic member of the House Financial Services Committee, also criticized the government for shutting down citizens’ bank accounts without reason and without any appeals channel.