We don't know exactly what communications SEC and Coinbase have had over the years.

We do know Coinbase hired lots of very expensive lawyers to handle that relationship, so this wasn't exactly a surprise to the company. They've been stalling and preparing for years.

What latency do you expect?

In 1934, things moved slowly. Scaling was entirely manual and mostly linear, if you were an unregistered broker, to handle a thousand times more transactions you needed to hire approximately thousand times more brokers, and changes like that would get noticed quickly. Someone in 1934 might have been proud of how fast-paced they could operate, given that in the preceding two decades the telephone had exploded in popularity. They could even place a trans-continental phone call, and communicate with someone a thousand miles away; imagine that!

Governments designed and tested in the 1700s and 1800s should not be expected to anticipate and seamlessly cope with technological change that is accelerating faster and faster.

The USA’s governance system is literally designed by the founders to make slow change. They were fearful that quick legal/governance changes would have less than desirable consequences.

I don't think the 1934 point was where the latency came from. The question is why did it take 4 years for the SEC to bring action against Coinbase. They weren't exactly hiding their behavior. At best, it seems that the SEC was waiting so that they could claim more damages?

Because before FTX, the political mood was laissez-faire. And now it is "bring me their heads".

Say what you like about crypto, coinbase have been 200% upfront, honest and compliant in their businesses and the SEC were A-Ok with that until 1 month ago.

I think the feds use a different definition of "good at the job" than you do. They are slow, but they are inexorable. They very rarely lose once they bring charges.

Perhaps this should change. I can understand taking a while to decide to bring charges against Coinbase, but ten years?