The state lifted its order against Coinbase's staking service, which had been off-limits to New Jersey residents since June 2023
New Jersey has dropped its staking lawsuit against Coinbase and lifted the order that kept residents out of the exchange’s staking program.
Users in the Garden State should be able to start staking again soon. They’ve been locked out since June 6, 2023.
The cost of that pause was real. New Jersey users are estimated to have missed out on at least $15 million in staking rewards while the order was in effect.
What happened and what it cost
The fight started in 2023. That year the SEC and several states went after Coinbase, arguing that its staking product amounted to an offering of unregistered securities.
New Jersey’s piece of that campaign was a cease-and-desist order, which is now gone.
Coinbase handles the technical work for customers who don’t want to run their own validator setups. Regulators argued that arrangement looked a lot like an investment contract. Coinbase argued it was a service.
That disagreement has now cost New Jersey users an estimated $15 million in rewards they never collected.
Zoom out further and the number grows. The broader impact of staking restrictions across other states still facing limits is estimated to exceed $110 million.
Coinbase has also reported that no users have lost assets while staking on its platform.
A state-by-state retreat
New Jersey isn’t the first state to walk away from this fight. The momentum shifted after the SEC dismissed its own parallel case against Coinbase in February 2026. Once the federal regulator stepped back, the state-level cases started to look a bit lonely.
Similar actions have since been dismissed in Illinois, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont, and Alabama. New Jersey now joins that list.
Not every state has folded, though. Restrictions remain in place in California, Maryland, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Coinbase’s chief legal officer has been vocal about that problem. The company has pushed for a comprehensive federal regulatory framework instead of a state-by-state approach.
What this means for users, Coinbase, and the holdouts
For New Jersey residents, a product they couldn’t use for more than two years is expected to come back, and with it the ability to earn rewards on tokens they already hold.
The bigger question is what the remaining four states do next. California, Maryland, Washington, and Wisconsin are now holding positions that the SEC and a growing number of their peers have abandoned.
The estimated $110 million in missed rewards across restricted states adds a political dimension. Residents in those states can now point to neighbors who regained access and ask why they haven’t.
