Is Coinbase legal in Maryland?

The city. Baltimore's City Solicitor filed the complaint in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City on August 13, 2026, No. C-24-CV-26-005532 (p.1). It names seven companies: KalshiEX LLC and Kalshi Inc., two Robinhood companies, two Webull companies, and Coinbase Financial Markets, Inc. The mayor's announcement that day describes suits against "Kalshi and Polymarket and their affiliated companies" and does not mention Coinbase by name.

In the court filings we read and a search of the Maryland attorney general's site, we found no lawsuit, order or cease-and-desist letter from the State of Maryland addressed to Coinbase. We could not search the gaming regulator's own site, so that check is incomplete. Maryland's gaming regulator did write to Kalshi, on April 7, 2025, and that dispute is covered on Kalshi in Maryland. A city suit runs on a city ordinance, and it does not speak for the state's gaming regulator or its attorney general.

The complaint describes Coinbase Financial Markets as a Delaware corporation headquartered in New York that "provides the Coinbase electronic trading platform" (¶24, p.6). In the city's telling, Coinbase partnered with Kalshi in December 2025 to launch a prediction markets hub whose contracts "are sourced by Kalshi", which makes the hub "practically identical" to Kalshi's own site, and "Coinbase and Kalshi each receive a fee whenever an event contract is purchased" through it (¶56, p.14).

Two counts are aimed at Coinbase alone, both under the Baltimore Consumer Protection Ordinance, City Code Article 2, which borrows its definition of unfair, abusive and deceptive practices from the Maryland Consumer Protection Act (¶190, p.43):

• Count 7, deception (pp.42-43). The city alleges Coinbase's hub, app and advertising "repeatedly conveyed the false, deceptive, and misleading impression that the sports-event contracts available through the Coinbase platform are lawful in Maryland" (¶193).
• Count 8, unfair and abusive practices (pp.44-45). The city alleges Coinbase caused Baltimore consumers "monetary losses" (¶204) and won "an unfair competitive advantage" by selling sports contracts outside the licensing framework that applies to Maryland sportsbooks (¶205).

Each count claims civil penalties of up to $1,000 for every violation and every day it continued, citing Article 2, § 4-4 (¶¶197, 208). The demand for relief, which covers all defendants, asks for the maximum statutory penalties, an injunction ordering them to stop operating "their unauthorized sports wagering platforms in the City of Baltimore" and to refuse Baltimore residents' transactions, disgorgement, and restitution to Baltimore consumers (p.45); that demand cites a different section for the penalties, Article 2, § 4-3(a). Every characterization here is the city's. The court has deferred Coinbase's deadline to answer, and we found no answer filed.

Kalshi's two companies removed it. The parties' stipulation of September 28, 2026 recites that KalshiEX LLC and Kalshi Inc. moved the case to the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on August 14, the day after filing, where it became No. 1:26-cv-03217 (ECF 33, p.1). The city filed a motion to send it back to state court on September 14 (p.2). We have not read that motion. The stipulation recites that one of the city's grounds is Burford abstention, and that the same federal court sent the city's suit against DraftKings back to state court on that ground on November 10, 2025, an order DraftKings appealed to the Fourth Circuit (No. 25-2372) with argument "tentatively scheduled for December 2026" (p.2). We have not read the DraftKings order itself.

The docket as we last read it, on October 16, 2026, records a September 10 marginal order on the city's notice voluntarily dismissing the two Robinhood companies only; we could not re-read the docket for this update. The stipulation is signed by the city, Kalshi's two companies and Coinbase Financial Markets, and a footnote says the Webull companies "have not yet filed appearances" (p.1 n.1). In the stipulation, each defendant "expressly preserves" all its defenses and objections, including any to removal or remand (pp.3-4).

Everything. Judge Adam B. Abelson approved the stipulation in an order dated October 1, 2026 (ECF 34). It stays "All proceedings", including the briefing on the remand motion and the defendants' deadlines to respond to the complaint, until the earlier of two dates (p.1):

• four months from the date of the order (the order states no calendar date; counting from October 1, 2026, that is February 1, 2027); or
• the date the Supreme Court decides the last of the three pending certiorari petitions, whether it grants or denies them.

The stipulation names those petitions as Flaherty v. KalshiEX, North American Derivatives Exchange v. Nevada, and Robinhood Derivatives v. Dreitzer, "presenting similar questions pertaining to federal preemption" (ECF 33, p.2). The numbers it gives, 25-1922, 25-7187 and 25-7831, are the lower-court appeal numbers; the Supreme Court's own dockets list the petitions as Nos. 26-299, 26-344 and 26-338, all undecided as of October 25, 2026. Coinbase is not a party to any of the three. Kalshi at the Supreme Court follows where each stands. The stay is in force, and it orders Coinbase to do nothing: it pauses the case without deciding anything in it.

The same judge decided Kalshi's own suit against Maryland's gaming officials in 2025, when he denied Kalshi a preliminary injunction on August 1, 2025 (No. 1:25-cv-01283-ABA). That case is Kalshi's, and Coinbase was not a party.

Baltimore filed a separate suit against Polymarket's U.S. companies the same day, and that case has its own federal judge and remand fight: Polymarket in Maryland. Kalshi's appeal to the Fourth Circuit against Maryland's gaming officials (No. 25-1892) concerns Kalshi's exchange directly and turns on the federal preemption question Coinbase raises in its own suits. Coinbase is not a party to it. Kalshi in Maryland tracks it.

Coinbase has argued its side elsewhere, not in Baltimore yet. In the suits it brought against state officials in Michigan, Connecticut and Illinois, Coinbase asks for a declaration that state gambling laws are preempted insofar as they would stop it giving customers access to contracts on a CFTC-designated exchange (Illinois complaint, p.39). Courts have split on that: the Michigan and Connecticut courts denied Coinbase preliminary injunctions, and on October 2, 2026 the Illinois court granted its motion in part and continued it in part. Coinbase in Illinois has that ruling.

No order we found in the Baltimore case reaches Coinbase customers. The complaint alleges that Coinbase "has made sports wagering available to residents" of Baltimore (¶24, p.7), but that is an allegation, and we could not confirm from a primary document which contract categories Coinbase offers Maryland residents today. Nothing we read addresses withdrawals, deposits or open positions. The city's requests for restitution and for an end to Baltimore transactions are requests in a case that is stayed.

Within seven days of the stay's end, the parties must either file a joint status report agreeing to stay longer or propose a new schedule (ECF 34, p.1). Without an agreement, the defendants get 21 days to oppose the remand motion, and the city gets 21 days after that to reply (p.2). The deadline to answer the complaint stays deferred while the remand motion is pending (p.2). If the case went back to state court, it would continue in Baltimore City Circuit Court; if it stayed, it would continue in federal court.

We found no ruling or filing after the October 1 order, but the docket we read was last checked October 16, 2026 and can lag the court's own system. Coinbase's status in every other state is on the Coinbase legal page.

Baltimore's case asks whether a city consumer protection ordinance and Maryland's sports wagering rules reach these contracts, and a state or city ruling is not a ruling on federal income tax. How the people we've seen file report event contracts, as gambling, capital gains on Form 8949 or Section 1256 contracts on Form 6781, is in the prediction market tax guide.