Nov. 12 (UPI) — Cryptocurrency firm Coinbase said its planning to leave Delaware and reincorporate its business in Texas.
The move to reincorporate in the Lone Star state was unanimously approved and recommended by the Coinbase board of directors.
A rough 78% majority of Coinbase shareholders approved the action.
“Delaware’s legal framework once provided companies with consistency. But no more,” Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, wrote in a Wall Street Journal Journal op-ed.
Coinbase now follows Elon Musk-owned Tesla in exiting Delaware to move its new base to Texas.
The crypto giant’s Texas legal counsel pointed to a state law signed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, in May that “strengthens” the state’s corporate legal framework, and supposedly “creates certainty and predictability” that served as the vehicle that helped create the business environment for Coinbase to make the move.
In February, Musk wrote on his X platform that he recommended Delaware-incorporated companies move “to another state as soon as possible.”
Texas’ Senate bill 29 aimed to make the state a “preferred jurisdiction for legal domestication, by creating an environment where ambitious, innovative companies can thrive,” Chris Converse, a partner at international law firm Foley and Lardner’s Dallas office who helped draft and push the law, told UPI in a statement.
It arrived after a Delaware court ruled against Tesla paying the ex-White House DOGE adviser a $56 billion pay package.
Grawal claimed Delaware’s Chancery Court provided “unpredictable outcomes” for the digital currency platform.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, like Musk, was a significant backer of U.S. President Donald Trump and his 2024 presidential campaign.