Overview
The shortest case on this tracker, and the only one decided on abstention. Coinbase filed on February 4, 2026 with an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order, trying to get ahead of an ex parte application Nevada had pending in state court. It was over in three days.
Nevada had already sued Coinbase in the First Judicial District Court in Carson City (No. 26 OC 00030 1B) under the Gaming Control Act, and Judge Kristin Luis issued an ex parte temporary restraining order on February 5. On February 7, 2026 Judge Cristina D. Silva denied Coinbase’s federal motion and dismissed the complaint without prejudice, holding that Younger abstention barred the relief sought and, in the alternative, that the Anti-Injunction Act did.
This is not a preemption ruling and should never be counted as one. The court said so directly: "I find it unnecessary to assess those factors on the merits because … the Court has no power to grant the relief Coinbase seeks." On the exception Coinbase pressed, the court wrote that "frustration is neither an exception to Younger nor a reason for this court to exercise its limited jurisdiction."
The state court did reach preemption. On March 26, 2026, after a February 17 hearing, Judge Luis granted Nevada a preliminary injunction barring Coinbase from offering sports-, election- and entertainment-related event contracts in Nevada, gave it sixty days to build compliance, and held that the Commodity Exchange Act does not give the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction over those contracts. (TRO and injunction read from the signed, file-stamped orders; some February press reported the TRO as denied, which traces to Coinbase’s own unsigned proposed order in the same exhibit.)