Coinbase has seen an increase in information requests from law enforcement over the past year in its latest transparency report. The majority of the enquiries came from the United States and were tied to criminal investigations.
The transparency report covers the last four quarters ending with September. In that time, the exchange received 12,320 information requests from law enforcement. The United States accounted for 5,304, requests. The United Kingdom, Germany and Spain produced between 1,000 and 2,000 requests apiece while 57 other countries also made requests.
According to the report, which was attributed to chief legal officer Paul Grewal, Coinbase may challenge or ask agencies to narrow their requests, as decided by their team of lawyers. The exchange does not provide law enforcement with direct access to information but explained that they may produce information such as customer name, recent login and payment information,
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said in an interview earlier in December that the exchange’s trading revenue fell by about half over the past year. Coinbase has 108 million customers worldwide.
