centered<\/a><\/strong> on whether the Internal Revenue Service violated constitutional protections when it obtained bulk customer data from Coinbase. Plaintiff James Harper had argued that the IRS\u2019s data sweep constituted an unreasonable search, in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which guards against invasive government access to personal records without due process.<\/p>\nBy denying the petition for writ of certiorari, the Supreme Court effectively endorsed the lower court\u2019s ruling in favor of the IRS\u2014cementing it as legal precedent. This marks a decisive victory for the federal government\u2019s push to increase tax compliance in the fast-growing crypto sector.<\/p>\n
What This Means for Crypto Users<\/h2>\n
The ruling reinforces that crypto accounts on centralized platforms like Coinbase do not enjoy the same privacy protections as personal documents kept at home. In legal terms, once you voluntarily share information with a third party\u2014such as an exchange\u2014you may no longer have a \u201creasonable expectation of privacy,\u201d which the Fourth Amendment is designed to protect.<\/p>\n
This opens the door for the IRS to request and collect transaction records, wallet histories, and user data from crypto platforms, even in the absence of individual suspicion or wrongdoing.<\/p>\n