Think about this in a more practical mindset. While crypto was growing and experimenting and not causing great harm, the regulators were happy to let it do its

Think about this in a more practical mindset. While crypto was growing and experimenting and not causing great harm, the regulators were happy to let it do its thing. The moment major losses occurred due to large scale fraud collapses, THAT is when the regulators decided to pay more attention and look for rules that might be getting broken. Moreover, with the increased use of crypto by nation states such as North Korea, Russia, Iran, Hamas, etc... to evade sanctions and launder money, and the general lack of any material crypto economy, then parts of the gov't, in general, are starting to think the show needs to end for crypto - and are talking to regulators to shut down exchanges. That is why there are no "productive conversations" between Coinbase and regulators. The regulators don't want to give them any valid methods of operating - because they NOW don't want them to operate at all.