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Supreme Court Declines to Take Up Coinbase User Data Privacy Case

Published

17 часов ago

30 июня, 2025

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The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to take up a long-running privacy case involving an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) request for data on thousands of Coinbase customers.

In a Monday order, the justices denied a petition for a writ of certiorari — essentially, a green-light to appeal an appellate court’s decision — from a Coinbase customer who said that the IRS’s 2016 records grab violated his Fourth Amendment rights, which grant Americans protections from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.

The plaintiff, James “Jim” Harper, initially filed suit against the IRS in 2020, nearly a year after he and thousands of other Coinbase customers received letters from the IRS, warning them that they potentially failed to report income and pay the resulting tax from crypto transactions, or that they did not report their transactions properly.

In his suit, Harper claimed that the IRS’ so-called “John Doe summons” — which the agency uses to sniff out potential tax violations by unknown individuals by forcing financial institutions to provide them with records and other information the agency can use to identify potential violators — against Coinbase was unconstitutional.

“Where once it lacked the authority to peek into a person’s private papers even with the use of a subpoena, the Internal Revenue Service has now acquired the power to demand access to anyone’s private information without any judicial process,” Harper’s lawyers wrote in their suit. “IRS demands access even when a person has entered into a contract with a third party that promises to protect his private information from such intrusion.”

In 2021, a New Hampshire district court tossed out Harper’s suit, siding with the IRS. Harper appealed, and in 2023, a different New Hampshire district court judge once again sided with the IRS and dismissed the case, writing: “As the Supreme Court recently reaffirmed, “[t]o pursue unpaid taxes and the people who owe them, ‘Congress has granted the Service broad latitude to issue summonses.’The IRS’s actions at issue in this case fall squarely within that broad latitude, and Harper is not entitled to protection or relief beyond the existing Congressionally and judicially imposed “safeguards” and checks on the IRS’s powers.”

Harper appealed again, and in 2024, a U.S. appeals court affirmed the lower court’s decision to toss the case. In February, Harper filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court, his last chance to get a different result in the long-running legal battle.

Since Harper’s petition was filed in February, a slew of high-profile think tanks and companies including Coinbase and X filed amicus briefs in the case, arguing that the Supreme Court should take the case and review the so-called third-party doctrine, a legal principle dating back to a 1976 Supreme Court decision stating that individuals have no reasonable expectation of privacy for information voluntarily shared with a third party, meaning that government agencies can access such information without a warrant or probable cause without violating the Fourth Amendment.

However, the Supreme Court was unmoved. It provided no additional information or justification for its Monday order denying Harper’s petition, writing simply:

“The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.”

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American Bitcoin, Backed by Eric and Donald Trump Jr, Pulls In $220M to Accumulate BTC

Published

18 минут ago

1 июля, 2025

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American Bitcoin Corp, a Miami-based mining company majority owned by Hut 8 (HUT) and backed by the Trump family, has raised $220 million from accredited investors, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The raise topped its target of $200 million, and it also accepted about $10 million worth of bitcoin (BTC) in lieu of cash, the filing details. The placement netted roughly $215 million after fees. The firm sold 11,002,954 Class A shares in total.

The fresh capital will be used add bitcoin to the firm’s treasury and upgrade its fleet of mining machines.

The sons of U.S. President Donald Trump, Eric and Donald Trump Jr, owned American Data Center, which merged with American Bitcoin. According to earlier reports, American Bitcoin is 80% owned by Hut 8, with the Trump brothers owning 20%.

In May, the firm announced it is vying a public listing by merging with Gryphon Digital Mining (GRYP). Hut 8’s share are down 0.86% in pre-market trading at $18.44.

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Bitcoin Miner IREN Hits 50 EH/s Midyear Hashrate Target, Eyes AI Expansion

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26 минут ago

1 июля, 2025

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Australian bitcoin (BTC) miner IREN (IREN) said it reached its midyear hashrate target of 50 exahashes per second (EH/s) installed self-mining capacity.

The growth from 31 EH/s at the end of last year is anchored by IREN’s 750MW site in Childress, Texas, the company formerly known as formerly Iris Energy, said in an announcement on Tuesday.

Sydney-based IREN’s attention is now on Horizon 1, a 50MW AI data center at Childress, which it says it set for delivery in the fourth quarter.

Hashrate is a measurement of the computing power behind the Bitcoin network. The higher a company’s hashrate, the higher its chances of mining new BTC and receiving the rewards that come with it. Rival CleanSpark (CLSK) also reached the milestone of 50 EH/s last month.

«With 50 EH/s of mining expansion complete, we’re now turning to our next frontier, leveraging the same execution discipline to scale AI infrastructure across high-growth compute markets,» co-founder Daniel Roberts said in the statement.

IREN’s Nasdaq-listed shares closed over 4% higher at $14.57 on Monday. They were recently 4.12% lower in pre-market trading.

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Strategy’s Perpetual Preferred Stocks May Be Front Running S&P 500 Inclusion

Published

35 минут ago

1 июля, 2025

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Disclaimer: The analyst who wrote this article has shares in Strategy (MSTR)

Strategy’s (MSTR) perpetual preferred shares may be anticipating the bitcoin-accumulation company’s inclusion in the S&P 500 index after the largest cryptocurrency posted a record-high monthly close at a price some analysts calculate lifted quarterly earnings to a level that qualifies it for the U.S. equity benchmark.

That may not be the only reason for their popularity, however. The stocks all offer yields above the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 4.25%-4.5% at levels that may be enough to attract investor interest, especially given President Donald Trump’s calls for U.S. interest rates to be lowered.

While the official announcement regarding S&P 500 inclusion is not due until September. Still, on Monday, MSTR rose 5%, pushing the stock above $400, its highest since May 22. More notable gains came from the perpetual preferred shares, STRK, which climbed 15% and STRF, which added 7.5%. The STRD shares rose 3%.

Bitcoin BTC ended June at $107,750, a level that translates into a positive earnings impact of about $11 billion for Tyson Corner, Virgina-based Strategy, and boosts earnings per share to around $39.50, according to MSTR analyst Jeff Walton. That’s enough for it to post a net positive figure from the most recent four quarters, the last barrier it faced to be added to the S&P 500.

Shares often rise when they join, or are expected to join, the benchmark because membership opens up greater demand from institutions who are not allowed to invest in companies that haven’t made the cut.

STRK’s advance pushed the price to $121 with an effective yield of 6.6%. Since its Feb. 6 launch, STRK has delivered a 42% return, outperforming both bitcoin’s 11% jump and the S&P 500’s 2%. The figures exclude dividend payments associated with these products. STRF now offers an effective yield of 8.8% and STRD 11.1%.

Altogether, these developments raise the question of whether recent market moves represent front running ahead of a possible inclusion of MSTR in the S&P 500 alone.